$100 in 1936 is worth $747 in 1984,
because prices increased 647.5% over that period, an average of
4.28% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$747
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
647.5%
Average inflation rate
4.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$747
Price difference ($100 base)
$647
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1936 → 1984
$747
$100 in 1984 → 1936
$13.38
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1984
Between 1936 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 647.5%, which works out to an average of
4.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.13 buys in 1984: the 1936 dollar
lost 86.6% of its purchasing power over
these 48 years.
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.
Every 1936 amount converts to 1984 at the same ratio, 7.47: $1,000 becomes
$7,475, and $10,000 becomes $74,748.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1984
$1.00
$7.47
$5.00
$37.37
$10.00
$74.75
$20.00
$149
$50.00
$374
$100
$747
$500
$3,737
$1,000
$7,475
$5,000
$37,374
$10,000
$74,748
$100,000
$747,482
$1,000,000
$7,474,820
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1984
Between 1936 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 947.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 386.2%, against 647.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.28%
$747
Medical care
5.01%
$1,047
Food
4.48%
$819
Transportation
4.21%
$725
Apparel
3.35%
$486
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–).
Decade by decade: 1936 to 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1936–1984 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1936, at end
1936–1940
0.18%
0.7%
$101
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$173
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$213
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$279
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$593
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$747
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $213 by
1960, on its way to $747 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1936 had the buying
power of $747; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1936 to 1984: $100 is worth $747 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1984/