$100 in 1921 is worth $93.30 in 1930,
because prices declined 6.7% over that period, an average of
0.77% a year.
$100 in 1921 has
the same buying power as
$93.30
in 1930
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-6.7%
Average inflation rate
-0.77% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$93.30
Price difference ($100 base)
-$6.70
CPI in 1921
17.9
CPI in 1930
16.7
Inflation in 1921
-10.50%
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
$100 in 1921 → 1930
$93.30
$100 in 1930 → 1921
$107
What happened to prices between 1921 and 1930
Between 1921 and 1930, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.9 to 16.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 6.7%, which works out to an average of
-0.77% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1921 bought what
$1.07 buys in 1930: the 1921 dollar
gained 7.2% in purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the mirror image of the wartime
inflation that had more than doubled the cost of living between
1913 and 1920. The Depression of 1920-21, one
of the sharpest contractions in U.S. history, bottomed out that July
according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, even though it had
lasted barely eighteen months. Unemployment climbed toward one worker in ten
as businesses cut production and prices to work through wartime inventories,
but the same collapse in prices also meant the recovery, once it started,
had room to run without reigniting inflation. Warren Harding took office
March 4, promising a return to “normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic,
labor unrest, and rapid price swings; his administration moved quickly to
cut top income tax rates and federal spending. Congress also acted on
immigration that year: the Emergency Quota Act, signed May 19, capped annual
arrivals from each country at 3% of that nationality’s population in the
1910 census, the first time the United States had set a numerical ceiling on
immigration. The law favored northern and western Europe and cut total
immigration by more than half compared with prewar levels; Congress
tightened the formula again in 1924. First-class postage held at 2 cents,
unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1921 amount converts to 1930 at the same ratio, 0.93: $1,000 becomes
$933, and $10,000 becomes $9,330.
Amount in 1921
Value in 1930
$1.00
$0.93
$5.00
$4.66
$10.00
$9.33
$20.00
$18.66
$50.00
$46.65
$100
$93.30
$500
$466
$1,000
$933
$5,000
$4,665
$10,000
$9,330
$100,000
$93,296
$1,000,000
$932,961
Inflation by spending category, 1921–1930
Every category fell between 1921 and 1930: apparel the most, down 27.1%, and food the least, down 1.9%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1921
spending costs in 1930, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1921 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.77%
$93.30
Food
-0.21%
$98.11
Apparel
-3.45%
$72.89
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1921: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1921
$100 from 1921 had already become $97.77 by
1925, on its way to $93.30 in 1930; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 2.3% in 1925, and prices fell 6.1% in 1922, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1930, prices fell 2.3% and $100 from 1921 had the buying
power of $93.30; the year's average CPI of 16.7 is the level
behind every 1930 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 2.3% in 1930, a mild decline compared with what was
coming but the first sign that the summer 1929 downturn was not going to be
short. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that contraction from
August 1929, and by the time it finally bottomed out in March 1933 it would
run 43 months, the longest of any downturn in the NBER’s chronology back to
1854. Congress made the trade picture worse in June, when President Hoover
signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on more than 20,000
imported goods to some of the highest levels in a century. Trading partners
retaliated with tariffs of their own, and global trade volumes collapsed
over the next several years, deepening a downturn economists still debate
how much the tariff itself worsened. The financial system cracked that fall:
a regional banking panic culminated in the December 11 failure of the Bank
of United States in New York, at the time the largest bank failure in
American history, wiping out more than $200 million in deposits. It was the
first of four banking panics that would hit the country before 1933 was
out. Consumer prices still stood 68.7% above their 1913
starting point, but the direction had clearly turned. First-class postage
held at 2 cents, unchanged for eleven straight years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1921 to 1930: $100 is worth $93.30 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1921-to-1930/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1921 to 1930. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1921-to-1930/