$100 in 1934 is worth $1,679 in 2011,
because prices increased 1578.6% over that period, an average of
3.73% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$1,679
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1578.6%
Average inflation rate
3.73% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,679
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,579
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1934 → 2011
$1,679
$100 in 2011 → 1934
$5.96
What happened to prices between 1934 and 2011
Between 1934 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1578.6%, which works out to an average of
3.73% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2011: the 1934 dollar
lost 94.0% of its purchasing power over
these 77 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 2011 at the same ratio, 16.79: $1,000 becomes
$16,786, and $10,000 becomes $167,865.
Amount in 1934
Value in 2011
$1.00
$16.79
$5.00
$83.93
$10.00
$168
$20.00
$336
$50.00
$839
$100
$1,679
$500
$8,393
$1,000
$16,786
$5,000
$83,932
$10,000
$167,865
$100,000
$1,678,649
$1,000,000
$16,786,493
Inflation by spending category, 1934–2011
Between 1934 and 2011, food rose the most, up 1864.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 492.8%, against 1578.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.73%
$1,679
Food
3.94%
$1,964
Apparel
2.34%
$593
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 2011
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 1934–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,627
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,679
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $368 by
1974, on its way to $1,679 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $1,679; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,679 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-2011/