Between 1936 and 1937, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 14.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.6%, which works out to an average of
3.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.97 buys in 1937.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
The headline number is an average. Individual categories moved very differently over this
period. Here is what $100 of 1936 spending costs in 1937, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.60%
$104
Apparel
4.76%
$105
Food
3.97%
$104
Transportation
1.40%
$101
Medical care
0.98%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1936: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Consumer prices rose 3.6% in 1937, the fastest pace since before the
Depression and the fourth straight year of gains, leaving prices 10.8% above
their 1933 trough though still 15.8% below the
1929 peak. The recovery did not last the year. The National
Bureau of Economic Research dates a new business cycle peak to that May, the
start of what became known as the Recession of 1937-38. Policy tightened on
two fronts at once: the Federal Reserve had doubled bank reserve
requirements over the preceding year to head off inflation it worried was
building, and the federal government pulled back its own spending even as
new Social Security payroll taxes began draining money from paychecks
months before the first benefit checks went out. Together they choked off a
recovery that had not yet reached its pre-Depression footing. Not every
milestone that year was economic. The Golden Gate Bridge opened to traffic
on May 27 after four years of construction, at the time the longest
suspension bridge span in the world, a rare bright spot in a year that would
end with the economy sliding backward again. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1936 to 1937: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1937/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1937. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1937/