$100 in 1936 is worth $892 in 1989,
because prices increased 792.1% over that period, an average of
4.22% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$892
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
792.1%
Average inflation rate
4.22% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$892
Price difference ($100 base)
$792
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1936 → 1989
$892
$100 in 1989 → 1936
$11.21
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1989
Between 1936 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 792.1%, which works out to an average of
4.22% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1989: the 1936 dollar
lost 88.8% of its purchasing power over
these 53 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 1989 at the same ratio, 8.92: $1,000 becomes
$8,921, and $10,000 becomes $89,209.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1989
$1.00
$8.92
$5.00
$44.60
$10.00
$89.21
$20.00
$178
$50.00
$446
$100
$892
$500
$4,460
$1,000
$8,921
$5,000
$44,604
$10,000
$89,209
$100,000
$892,086
$1,000,000
$8,920,863
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1989
Between 1936 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 1363.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 464.8%, against 792.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.22%
$892
Medical care
5.19%
$1,464
Food
4.43%
$993
Transportation
4.00%
$798
Apparel
3.32%
$565
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 1989
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 1936–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$892
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $217 by
1962, on its way to $892 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1936 had the buying
power of $892; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1936 to 1989: $100 is worth $892 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1989/