$100 in 1936 is worth $1,862 in 2020,
because prices increased 1761.9% over that period, an average of
3.54% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$1,862
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1761.9%
Average inflation rate
3.54% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,862
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,762
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1936 → 2020
$1,862
$100 in 2020 → 1936
$5.37
What happened to prices between 1936 and 2020
Between 1936 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1761.9%, which works out to an average of
3.54% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2020: the 1936 dollar
lost 94.6% of its purchasing power over
these 84 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 2020 at the same ratio, 18.62: $1,000 becomes
$18,619, and $10,000 becomes $186,195.
Amount in 1936
Value in 2020
$1.00
$18.62
$5.00
$93.10
$10.00
$186
$20.00
$372
$50.00
$931
$100
$1,862
$500
$9,310
$1,000
$18,619
$5,000
$93,097
$10,000
$186,195
$100,000
$1,861,950
$1,000,000
$18,619,496
Inflation by spending category, 1936–2020
Between 1936 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 4987.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 462.3%, against 1761.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.54%
$1,862
Medical care
4.79%
$5,087
Food
3.70%
$2,121
Transportation
3.20%
$1,408
Apparel
2.08%
$562
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 2020
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 1936–2020 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$940
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,239
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,569
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,862
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $409 by
1976, on its way to $1,862 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1936 had the buying
power of $1,862; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1936 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,862 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-2020/