$100 in 1934 is worth $1,931 in 2020,
because prices increased 1831.4% over that period, an average of
3.50% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$1,931
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1831.4%
Average inflation rate
3.50% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,931
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,831
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1934 → 2020
$1,931
$100 in 2020 → 1934
$5.18
What happened to prices between 1934 and 2020
Between 1934 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1831.4%, which works out to an average of
3.50% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2020: the 1934 dollar
lost 94.8% of its purchasing power over
these 86 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 2020 at the same ratio, 19.31: $1,000 becomes
$19,314, and $10,000 becomes $193,143.
Amount in 1934
Value in 2020
$1.00
$19.31
$5.00
$96.57
$10.00
$193
$20.00
$386
$50.00
$966
$100
$1,931
$500
$9,657
$1,000
$19,314
$5,000
$96,571
$10,000
$193,143
$100,000
$1,931,425
$1,000,000
$19,314,254
Inflation by spending category, 1934–2020
Between 1934 and 2020, food rose the most, up 2203.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 473.2%, against 1831.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.50%
$1,931
Food
3.72%
$2,304
Apparel
2.05%
$573
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 2020
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 1934–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,931
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $542 by
1979, on its way to $1,931 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $1,931; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,931 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-2020/