$100 in 1934 is worth $720 in 1982,
because prices increased 620.1% over that period, an average of
4.20% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$720
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
620.1%
Average inflation rate
4.20% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$720
Price difference ($100 base)
$620
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1934 → 1982
$720
$100 in 1982 → 1934
$13.89
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1982
Between 1934 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 620.1%, which works out to an average of
4.20% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1982: the 1934 dollar
lost 86.1% of its purchasing power over
these 48 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 1982 at the same ratio, 7.20: $1,000 becomes
$7,201, and $10,000 becomes $72,015.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1982
$1.00
$7.20
$5.00
$36.01
$10.00
$72.01
$20.00
$144
$50.00
$360
$100
$720
$500
$3,601
$1,000
$7,201
$5,000
$36,007
$10,000
$72,015
$100,000
$720,149
$1,000,000
$7,201,493
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1982
Between 1934 and 1982, food rose the most, up 739.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 374.8%, against 620.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.20%
$720
Food
4.53%
$840
Apparel
3.30%
$475
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1982 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
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$720
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $216 by
1958, on its way to $720 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $720; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1982: $100 is worth $720 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1982/