$100 in 1934 is worth $1,078 in 1993,
because prices increased 978.4% over that period, an average of
4.11% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$1,078
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
978.4%
Average inflation rate
4.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,078
Price difference ($100 base)
$978
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1934 → 1993
$1,078
$100 in 1993 → 1934
$9.27
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1993
Between 1934 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 978.4%, which works out to an average of
4.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.09 buys in 1993: the 1934 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 59 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 1993 at the same ratio, 10.78: $1,000 becomes
$10,784, and $10,000 becomes $107,836.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1993
$1.00
$10.78
$5.00
$53.92
$10.00
$108
$20.00
$216
$50.00
$539
$100
$1,078
$500
$5,392
$1,000
$10,784
$5,000
$53,918
$10,000
$107,836
$100,000
$1,078,358
$1,000,000
$10,783,582
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1993
Between 1934 and 1993, food rose the most, up 1114.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 549.0%, against 978.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.11%
$1,078
Food
4.32%
$1,215
Apparel
3.22%
$649
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 1993
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 1934–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$975
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$1,078
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $231 by
1964, on its way to $1,078 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $1,078; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 1993: $100 is worth $1,078 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1993/