$100 in 1934 is worth $274 in 1969,
because prices increased 173.9% over that period, an average of
2.92% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$274
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
173.9%
Average inflation rate
2.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$274
Price difference ($100 base)
$174
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1934 → 1969
$274
$100 in 1969 → 1934
$36.51
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1969
Between 1934 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 173.9%, which works out to an average of
2.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1969: the 1934 dollar
lost 63.5% of its purchasing power over
these 35 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 1969 at the same ratio, 2.74: $1,000 becomes
$2,739, and $10,000 becomes $27,388.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1969
$1.00
$2.74
$5.00
$13.69
$10.00
$27.39
$20.00
$54.78
$50.00
$137
$100
$274
$500
$1,369
$1,000
$2,739
$5,000
$13,694
$10,000
$27,388
$100,000
$273,881
$1,000,000
$2,738,806
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1969
Between 1934 and 1969, food rose the most, up 219.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 175.7%, against 173.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.92%
$274
Food
3.38%
$320
Apparel
2.94%
$276
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 1969
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 1934–1969 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
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$221
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$274
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $198 by
1952, on its way to $274 in 1969; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1969
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $274; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1969: $100 is worth $274 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1969/