$100 in 1934 is worth $487 in 1978,
because prices increased 386.6% over that period, an average of
3.66% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$487
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
386.6%
Average inflation rate
3.66% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$487
Price difference ($100 base)
$387
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1934 → 1978
$487
$100 in 1978 → 1934
$20.55
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1978
Between 1934 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 386.6%, which works out to an average of
3.66% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.21 buys in 1978: the 1934 dollar
lost 79.4% of its purchasing power over
these 44 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 1978 at the same ratio, 4.87: $1,000 becomes
$4,866, and $10,000 becomes $48,657.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1978
$1.00
$4.87
$5.00
$24.33
$10.00
$48.66
$20.00
$97.31
$50.00
$243
$100
$487
$500
$2,433
$1,000
$4,866
$5,000
$24,328
$10,000
$48,657
$100,000
$486,567
$1,000,000
$4,865,672
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1978
Between 1934 and 1978, food rose the most, up 520.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 295.1%, against 386.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.66%
$487
Food
4.24%
$621
Apparel
3.17%
$395
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1978 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$290
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$487
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $203 by
1956, on its way to $487 in 1978; 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: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $487; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1978: $100 is worth $487 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1978/