$100 in 1934 is worth $210 in 1957,
because prices increased 109.7% over that period, an average of
3.27% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$210
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
109.7%
Average inflation rate
3.27% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$210
Price difference ($100 base)
$110
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1934 → 1957
$210
$100 in 1957 → 1934
$47.69
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1957
Between 1934 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 109.7%, which works out to an average of
3.27% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1957: the 1934 dollar
lost 52.3% of its purchasing power over
these 23 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 1957 at the same ratio, 2.10: $1,000 becomes
$2,097, and $10,000 becomes $20,970.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1957
$1.00
$2.10
$5.00
$10.49
$10.00
$20.97
$20.00
$41.94
$50.00
$105
$100
$210
$500
$1,049
$1,000
$2,097
$5,000
$10,485
$10,000
$20,970
$100,000
$209,701
$1,000,000
$2,097,015
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1957
Between 1934 and 1957, food rose the most, up 149.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 116.0%, against 109.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.27%
$210
Food
4.05%
$249
Apparel
3.41%
$216
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 1957
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1957 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$180
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$210
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $134 by
1945, on its way to $210 in 1957; 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 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $210; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1957: $100 is worth $210 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1957/