$100 in 1924 is worth $100 in 1929,
because prices increased 0.0% over that period, an average of
0.00% a year.
$100 in 1924 has
the same buying power as
$100
in 1929
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
0.0%
Average inflation rate
0.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$100
Price difference ($100 base)
$0.00
CPI in 1924
17.1
CPI in 1929
17.1
Inflation in 1924
0.00%
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
$100 in 1924 → 1929
$100
$100 in 1929 → 1924
$100
What happened to prices between 1924 and 1929
Between 1924 and 1929, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 0.0%, which works out to an average of
0.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1924 bought what
$1.00 buys in 1929: the 1924 dollar
lost 0.0% of its purchasing power over
these 5 years.
Consumer prices held flat in 1924, the CPI’s annual average unchanged from
1923 after swinging from a sharp postwar drop to a modest rise the year
before. That stability, extending the calm that had settled in after the
deflation of 1921 and 1922, became a defining feature of the rest of the
decade. Congress tightened immigration policy further with the Immigration
Act of 1924, signed May 26, which cut the national-origins quota from 3% of
each nationality’s 1910 census population to 2% of its 1890 population,
shifting admissions further toward northern and western Europe and
effectively excluding most immigration from Asia. Abroad, the U.S.-backed
Dawes Plan, adopted that August, reorganized Germany’s war reparations
payments and opened the way for American loans into the German economy,
helping stabilize European currencies after the hyperinflation that had
peaked in 1923. At home, Calvin Coolidge, who had served out
the remainder of Warren Harding’s term after his death the previous year,
won a full term of his own that November, campaigning on continued
prosperity and limited government. First-class postage remained at 2 cents,
a price unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1924 amount converts to 1929 at the same ratio, 1.00: $1,000 becomes
$1,000, and $10,000 becomes $10,000.
Amount in 1924
Value in 1929
$1.00
$1.00
$5.00
$5.00
$10.00
$10.00
$20.00
$20.00
$50.00
$50.00
$100
$100
$500
$500
$1,000
$1,000
$5,000
$5,000
$10,000
$10,000
$100,000
$100,000
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
Inflation by spending category, 1924–1929
Between 1924 and 1929, food rose the most, up 8.6%, while apparel fell 7.8%, against 0.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1924
spending costs in 1929, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1924 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.00%
$100
Food
1.65%
$109
Apparel
-1.62%
$92.16
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1924: 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 1924
$100 from 1924 had already become $104 by
1926, on its way to $100 in 1929; 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 1.7% in 1928, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1929, prices rose 0.0% and $100 from 1924 had the buying
power of $100; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1929 figure on this page.
Consumer prices were unchanged in 1929, the CPI’s annual average flat for
the second time in six years and a fitting close to a decade that began with
wartime inflation and ended in rough price stability. By year’s end the
index stood 14.5% below its 1920 peak and roughly 73% above its
1913 starting point, a reminder that even a “stable” decade
left prices well above where they had started. The stability in the cost of
living masked what was building in financial markets. The National Bureau
of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to that
August, the month the business cycle peaked, months before most Americans
noticed anything was wrong. The break came that October: panic selling hit
Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and returned even worse on Black
Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in
a single session. Billions of dollars in paper wealth disappeared within
days, and the crash marked the start of a downturn that would pull consumer
prices into their steepest sustained decline of the 20th century over the
next four years. First-class postage was still 2 cents, a price that would
hold until 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1924 to 1929: $100 is worth $100 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1924-to-1929/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1924 to 1929. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1924-to-1929/