$100 in 1934 is worth $2,403 in 2025,
because prices increased 2302.6% over that period, an average of
3.56% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$2,403
in 2025
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2302.6%
Average inflation rate
3.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,403
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,303
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 2025
321.943
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 2025
2.63%
$100 in 1934 → 2025
$2,403
$100 in 2025 → 1934
$4.16
What happened to prices between 1934 and 2025
Between 1934 and 2025, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 321.943.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2302.6%, which works out to an average of
3.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2025: the 1934 dollar
lost 95.8% of its purchasing power over
these 91 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 2025 at the same ratio, 24.03: $1,000 becomes
$24,026, and $10,000 becomes $240,256.
Amount in 1934
Value in 2025
$1.00
$24.03
$5.00
$120
$10.00
$240
$20.00
$481
$50.00
$1,201
$100
$2,403
$500
$12,013
$1,000
$24,026
$5,000
$120,128
$10,000
$240,256
$100,000
$2,402,560
$1,000,000
$24,025,597
Inflation by spending category, 1934–2025
Between 1934 and 2025, food rose the most, up 2826.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 537.4%, against 2302.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 2025, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.56%
$2,403
Food
3.78%
$2,927
Apparel
2.06%
$637
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 2025
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 1934–2025 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
2020–2025
4.46%
24.4%
$2,403
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $542 by
1979, on its way to $2,403 in 2025; 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: 2025
In 2025, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $2,403; the year's average CPI of 321.943 is the level
behind every 2025 figure on this page.
2025 was a year of trade policy and data disruptions rather than an
inflation surge. Consumer prices rose 2.6% on average, a step down from
2024’s 2.9% and well below the 8.0% of 2022. Tariffs announced in April
pushed up prices for some imported goods, including furniture, apparel, and
auto parts, but the effect on the overall index was smaller than many
forecasters feared at the start of the year, in part because retailers
absorbed some of the cost and demand for services stayed steady.
The Federal Reserve held its policy rate steady through the first half of the
year, then began cutting again in September, lowering it in three quarter-point
steps to 3.50–3.75% by December.
The federal government shutdown that began October 1 lasted 43 days, and the
Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish a CPI for October 2025 because the
survey data could not be collected. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 78 cents in July.
MLA: “Inflation from 1934 to 2025: $100 is worth $2,403 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-2025/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 2025. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-2025/