$100 in 1934 is worth $166 in 1947,
because prices increased 66.4% over that period, an average of
4.00% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$166
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
66.4%
Average inflation rate
4.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$166
Price difference ($100 base)
$66.42
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1934 → 1947
$166
$100 in 1947 → 1934
$60.09
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1947
Between 1934 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 66.4%, which works out to an average of
4.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.60 buys in 1947: the 1934 dollar
lost 39.9% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1947 at the same ratio, 1.66: $1,000 becomes
$1,664, and $10,000 becomes $16,642.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.66
$5.00
$8.32
$10.00
$16.64
$20.00
$33.28
$50.00
$83.21
$100
$166
$500
$832
$1,000
$1,664
$5,000
$8,321
$10,000
$16,642
$100,000
$166,418
$1,000,000
$1,664,179
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1947
Between 1934 and 1947, food rose the most, up 107.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 93.7%, against 66.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.00%
$166
Food
5.79%
$208
Apparel
5.22%
$194
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 1947
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.88% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1947 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$166
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $104 by
1940, on its way to $166 in 1947; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $166; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1947: $100 is worth $166 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1947/