$100 in 1934 is worth $775 in 1984,
because prices increased 675.4% over that period, an average of
4.18% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$775
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
675.4%
Average inflation rate
4.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$775
Price difference ($100 base)
$675
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1934 → 1984
$775
$100 in 1984 → 1934
$12.90
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1984
Between 1934 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 675.4%, which works out to an average of
4.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.13 buys in 1984: the 1934 dollar
lost 87.1% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 1984 at the same ratio, 7.75: $1,000 becomes
$7,754, and $10,000 becomes $77,537.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1984
$1.00
$7.75
$5.00
$38.77
$10.00
$77.54
$20.00
$155
$50.00
$388
$100
$775
$500
$3,877
$1,000
$7,754
$5,000
$38,769
$10,000
$77,537
$100,000
$775,373
$1,000,000
$7,753,731
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1984
Between 1934 and 1984, food rose the most, up 789.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 395.6%, against 675.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.18%
$775
Food
4.47%
$890
Apparel
3.25%
$496
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 1984
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 1934–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$775
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $216 by
1958, on its way to $775 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $775; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1984: $100 is worth $775 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1984/