$100 in 1924 is worth $97.66 in 1930,
because prices declined 2.3% over that period, an average of
0.39% a year.
$100 in 1924 has
the same buying power as
$97.66
in 1930
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-2.3%
Average inflation rate
-0.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$97.66
Price difference ($100 base)
-$2.34
CPI in 1924
17.1
CPI in 1930
16.7
Inflation in 1924
0.00%
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
$100 in 1924 → 1930
$97.66
$100 in 1930 → 1924
$102
What happened to prices between 1924 and 1930
Between 1924 and 1930, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 16.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 2.3%, which works out to an average of
-0.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1924 bought what
$1.02 buys in 1930: the 1924 dollar
gained 2.4% in purchasing power over
these 6 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 1930 at the same ratio, 0.98: $1,000 becomes
$977, and $10,000 becomes $9,766.
Amount in 1924
Value in 1930
$1.00
$0.98
$5.00
$4.88
$10.00
$9.77
$20.00
$19.53
$50.00
$48.83
$100
$97.66
$500
$488
$1,000
$977
$5,000
$4,883
$10,000
$9,766
$100,000
$97,661
$1,000,000
$976,608
Inflation by spending category, 1924–1930
Between 1924 and 1930, food rose the most, up 2.6%, while apparel fell 9.7%, against 2.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1924
spending costs in 1930, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1924 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.39%
$97.66
Food
0.43%
$103
Apparel
-1.69%
$90.30
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 $102 by
1927, on its way to $97.66 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 2.3% in 1930, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1930, prices fell 2.3% and $100 from 1924 had the buying
power of $97.66; 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 1924 to 1930: $100 is worth $97.66 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1924-to-1930/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1924 to 1930. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1924-to-1930/