$100 in 1934 is worth $1,601 in 2009,
because prices increased 1501.0% over that period, an average of
3.77% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$1,601
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1501.0%
Average inflation rate
3.77% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,601
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,501
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1934 → 2009
$1,601
$100 in 2009 → 1934
$6.25
What happened to prices between 1934 and 2009
Between 1934 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1501.0%, which works out to an average of
3.77% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2009: the 1934 dollar
lost 93.8% of its purchasing power over
these 75 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 2009 at the same ratio, 16.01: $1,000 becomes
$16,010, and $10,000 becomes $160,102.
Amount in 1934
Value in 2009
$1.00
$16.01
$5.00
$80.05
$10.00
$160
$20.00
$320
$50.00
$801
$100
$1,601
$500
$8,005
$1,000
$16,010
$5,000
$80,051
$10,000
$160,102
$100,000
$1,601,022
$1,000,000
$16,010,224
Inflation by spending category, 1934–2009
Between 1934 and 2009, food rose the most, up 1778.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 482.9%, against 1501.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.77%
$1,601
Food
3.99%
$1,879
Apparel
2.38%
$583
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 2009
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 1934–2009 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,285
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,601
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $274 by
1969, on its way to $1,601 in 2009; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $1,601; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,601 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-2009/