$100 in 1934 is worth $134 in 1945,
because prices increased 34.3% over that period, an average of
2.72% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$134
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
34.3%
Average inflation rate
2.72% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$134
Price difference ($100 base)
$34.33
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1934 → 1945
$134
$100 in 1945 → 1934
$74.44
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1945
Between 1934 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices increased 34.3%, which works out to an average of
2.72% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.74 buys in 1945: the 1934 dollar
lost 25.6% of its purchasing power over
these 11 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 1945 at the same ratio, 1.34: $1,000 becomes
$1,343, and $10,000 becomes $13,433.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1945
$1.00
$1.34
$5.00
$6.72
$10.00
$13.43
$20.00
$26.87
$50.00
$67.16
$100
$134
$500
$672
$1,000
$1,343
$5,000
$6,716
$10,000
$13,433
$100,000
$134,328
$1,000,000
$1,343,284
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1945
Between 1934 and 1945, apparel rose the most, up 52.4%, while food rose the least, up 49.1%, against 34.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.72%
$134
Apparel
3.91%
$152
Food
3.70%
$149
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 1945
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.15% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1945 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1945
5.15%
28.6%
$134
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $104 by
1939, on its way to $134 in 1945; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $134; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1945: $100 is worth $134 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1945/