$100 in 1934 is worth $104 in 1936,
because prices increased 3.7% over that period, an average of
1.85% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$104
in 1936
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3.7%
Average inflation rate
1.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$104
Price difference ($100 base)
$3.73
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1936
13.9
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
$100 in 1934 → 1936
$104
$100 in 1936 → 1934
$96.40
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1936
Between 1934 and 1936, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.7%, which works out to an average of
1.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.96 buys in 1936: the 1934 dollar
lost 3.6% of its purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1934, the first annual increase since 1926;
every year from 1927 through 1933 had been flat or falling,
so the turn marked a real break after eight years without a single gain.
Currency policy did some of the work. The Gold Reserve Act, signed January
30, formally devalued the dollar by raising the official price of gold from
$20.67 to $35 an ounce, part of the administration’s deliberate effort to
reflate prices after four straight years of deflation. Financial regulation
tightened at the same time: the Securities Exchange Act of June 6 created
the Securities and Exchange Commission to police stock exchanges and enforce
disclosure rules, a direct response to the speculation blamed for the 1929
crash. The recovery was fragile and unevenly felt, especially on the Great
Plains, where drought had turned overplowed farmland to dust. Over May 9-11,
high winds lifted an estimated 350 million tons of topsoil into the air,
darkening skies as far away as Washington and New York and giving city
readers who had never seen a wheat field a first glimpse of the disaster
building in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Consumer prices stood 35.4% above
their 1913 level, still well below the 1929 peak but rising
for the first time since the Depression began. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
Every 1934 amount converts to 1936 at the same ratio, 1.04: $1,000 becomes
$1,037, and $10,000 becomes $10,373.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1936
$1.00
$1.04
$5.00
$5.19
$10.00
$10.37
$20.00
$20.75
$50.00
$51.87
$100
$104
$500
$519
$1,000
$1,037
$5,000
$5,187
$10,000
$10,373
$100,000
$103,731
$1,000,000
$1,037,313
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1936
Between 1934 and 1936, food rose the most, up 8.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 1.9%, against 3.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1936, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.85%
$104
Food
4.22%
$109
Apparel
0.97%
$102
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1934: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $102 by
1935, on its way to $104 in 1936; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 2.2% in 1935, and the smallest rise was 1.5% in 1936.
In 1936, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $104; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1936 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1936: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1936/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1936. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1936/