$100 in 1934 is worth $104 in 1939,
because prices increased 3.7% over that period, an average of
0.74% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$104
in 1939
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3.7%
Average inflation rate
0.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$104
Price difference ($100 base)
$3.73
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1939
13.9
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
$100 in 1934 → 1939
$104
$100 in 1939 → 1934
$96.40
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1939
Between 1934 and 1939, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.7%, which works out to an average of
0.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.96 buys in 1939: the 1934 dollar
lost 3.6% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1939 at the same ratio, 1.04: $1,000 becomes
$1,037, and $10,000 becomes $10,373.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1939
$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, 1934–1939
Between 1934 and 1939, apparel rose the most, up 4.9%, while food rose the least, up 1.7%, against 3.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1939, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.74%
$104
Apparel
0.95%
$105
Food
0.34%
$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 $104 by
1936, on its way to $104 in 1939; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.6% in 1937, and prices fell 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1939, prices fell 1.4% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $104; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1939 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1939: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1939/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1939. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1939/