$100 in 1934 is worth $146 in 1946,
because prices increased 45.5% over that period, an average of
3.18% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$146
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
45.5%
Average inflation rate
3.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$146
Price difference ($100 base)
$45.52
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1934 → 1946
$146
$100 in 1946 → 1934
$68.72
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1946
Between 1934 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 45.5%, which works out to an average of
3.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.69 buys in 1946: the 1934 dollar
lost 31.3% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1946 at the same ratio, 1.46: $1,000 becomes
$1,455, and $10,000 becomes $14,552.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.46
$5.00
$7.28
$10.00
$14.55
$20.00
$29.10
$50.00
$72.76
$100
$146
$500
$728
$1,000
$1,455
$5,000
$7,276
$10,000
$14,552
$100,000
$145,522
$1,000,000
$1,455,224
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1946
Between 1934 and 1946, food rose the most, up 70.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 67.0%, against 45.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.18%
$146
Food
4.56%
$171
Apparel
4.37%
$167
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 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.68% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1946 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$146
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $104 by
1940, on its way to $146 in 1946; 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 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $146; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1946: $100 is worth $146 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1946/