$100 in 1935 is worth $283 in 1970,
because prices increased 183.2% over that period, an average of
3.02% a year.
$100 in 1935 has
the same buying power as
$283
in 1970
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
183.2%
Average inflation rate
3.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$283
Price difference ($100 base)
$183
CPI in 1935
13.7
CPI in 1970
38.8
Inflation in 1935
2.24%
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
$100 in 1935 → 1970
$283
$100 in 1970 → 1935
$35.31
What happened to prices between 1935 and 1970
Between 1935 and 1970, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.7 to 38.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 183.2%, which works out to an average of
3.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1935 bought what
$0.35 buys in 1970: the 1935 dollar
lost 64.7% of its purchasing power over
these 35 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.2% in 1935, a second straight annual increase after
1934’s turnaround, though the CPI still sat well below its
1929 peak and the recovery remained uneven and incomplete.
The year’s biggest legislative achievements aimed at making that unevenness
less punishing. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14,
creating federal old-age pensions and unemployment insurance funded by a new
payroll tax, the first federal safety net of its kind in U.S. history. That
spring, the Works Progress Administration had already begun putting millions
of unemployed Americans to work on public construction, arts, and
infrastructure projects, becoming the largest jobs program of the New Deal.
Congress added labor protections to the mix that July with the National
Labor Relations Act, guaranteeing most private-sector workers the right to
organize and bargain collectively. The human cost of the Dust Bowl was still
mounting on the Plains: the storm known as Black Sunday hit on April 14,
one of the worst of the decade, and continued drought kept driving farm
families off land that could no longer support them. Consumer prices ended
the year 38.4% above their 1913 level. First-class postage
held at 3 cents.
Every 1935 amount converts to 1970 at the same ratio, 2.83: $1,000 becomes
$2,832, and $10,000 becomes $28,321.
Amount in 1935
Value in 1970
$1.00
$2.83
$5.00
$14.16
$10.00
$28.32
$20.00
$56.64
$50.00
$142
$100
$283
$500
$1,416
$1,000
$2,832
$5,000
$14,161
$10,000
$28,321
$100,000
$283,212
$1,000,000
$2,832,117
Inflation by spending category, 1935–1970
Between 1935 and 1970, medical care rose the most, up 233.3%, while transportation rose the least, up 164.1%, against 183.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1935
spending costs in 1970, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1935 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.02%
$283
Medical care
3.50%
$333
Food
3.34%
$316
Apparel
3.03%
$285
Transportation
2.81%
$264
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1935: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1935 to 1970
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.43% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1935–1970 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1935, at end
1935–1940
0.43%
2.2%
$102
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$176
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$216
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$283
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1935
$100 from 1935 had already become $195 by
1953, on its way to $283 in 1970; 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: 1970
In 1970, prices rose 5.7% and $100 from 1935 had the buying
power of $283; the year's average CPI of 38.8 is the level
behind every 1970 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1935 to 1970: $100 is worth $283 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1935-to-1970/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1935 to 1970. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1935-to-1970/