$100 in 1934 is worth $615 in 1980,
because prices increased 514.9% over that period, an average of
4.03% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$615
in 1980
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
514.9%
Average inflation rate
4.03% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$615
Price difference ($100 base)
$515
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1980
82.4
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
$100 in 1934 → 1980
$615
$100 in 1980 → 1934
$16.26
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1980
Between 1934 and 1980, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 82.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 514.9%, which works out to an average of
4.03% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1980: the 1934 dollar
lost 83.7% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 1980 at the same ratio, 6.15: $1,000 becomes
$6,149, and $10,000 becomes $61,493.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1980
$1.00
$6.15
$5.00
$30.75
$10.00
$61.49
$20.00
$123
$50.00
$307
$100
$615
$500
$3,075
$1,000
$6,149
$5,000
$30,746
$10,000
$61,493
$100,000
$614,925
$1,000,000
$6,149,254
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1980
Between 1934 and 1980, food rose the most, up 648.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 341.3%, against 514.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1980, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.03%
$615
Food
4.47%
$748
Apparel
3.28%
$441
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 1980
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1980 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$615
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $203 by
1956, on its way to $615 in 1980; 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: 1980
In 1980, prices rose 13.5% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $615; the year's average CPI of 82.4 is the level
behind every 1980 figure on this page.
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1980: $100 is worth $615 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1980/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1980. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1980/