$100 in 1934 is worth $110 in 1941,
because prices increased 9.7% over that period, an average of
1.33% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$110
in 1941
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
9.7%
Average inflation rate
1.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$110
Price difference ($100 base)
$9.70
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1941
14.7
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
$100 in 1934 → 1941
$110
$100 in 1941 → 1934
$91.16
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1941
Between 1934 and 1941, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 14.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 9.7%, which works out to an average of
1.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.91 buys in 1941: the 1934 dollar
lost 8.8% of its purchasing power over
these 7 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 1941 at the same ratio, 1.10: $1,000 becomes
$1,097, and $10,000 becomes $10,970.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1941
$1.00
$1.10
$5.00
$5.49
$10.00
$10.97
$20.00
$21.94
$50.00
$54.85
$100
$110
$500
$549
$1,000
$1,097
$5,000
$5,485
$10,000
$10,970
$100,000
$109,701
$1,000,000
$1,097,015
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1941
Between 1934 and 1941, food rose the most, up 12.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 10.7%, against 9.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1941, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.33%
$110
Food
1.75%
$113
Apparel
1.46%
$111
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–).
Decade by decade: 1934 to 1941
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.00% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1941 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1941
5.00%
5.0%
$110
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $107 by
1937, on its way to $110 in 1941; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.0% in 1941, and prices fell 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1941, prices rose 5.0% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $110; the year's average CPI of 14.7 is the level
behind every 1941 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1941: $100 is worth $110 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1941/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1941. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1941/