$100 in 1924 is worth $227 in 1970,
because prices increased 126.9% over that period, an average of
1.80% a year.
$100 in 1924 has
the same buying power as
$227
in 1970
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
126.9%
Average inflation rate
1.80% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$227
Price difference ($100 base)
$127
CPI in 1924
17.1
CPI in 1970
38.8
Inflation in 1924
0.00%
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
$100 in 1924 → 1970
$227
$100 in 1970 → 1924
$44.07
What happened to prices between 1924 and 1970
Between 1924 and 1970, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 38.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 126.9%, which works out to an average of
1.80% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1924 bought what
$0.44 buys in 1970: the 1924 dollar
lost 55.9% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 1970 at the same ratio, 2.27: $1,000 becomes
$2,269, and $10,000 becomes $22,690.
Amount in 1924
Value in 1970
$1.00
$2.27
$5.00
$11.35
$10.00
$22.69
$20.00
$45.38
$50.00
$113
$100
$227
$500
$1,135
$1,000
$2,269
$5,000
$11,345
$10,000
$22,690
$100,000
$226,901
$1,000,000
$2,269,006
Inflation by spending category, 1924–1970
Between 1924 and 1970, food rose the most, up 157.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 120.9%, against 126.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1924
spending costs in 1970, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1924 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.80%
$227
Food
2.08%
$258
Apparel
1.74%
$221
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–).
Decade by decade: 1924 to 1970
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1924–1970 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1924, at end
1924–1930
-0.39%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$173
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$227
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1924
$100 from 1924 had already become $114 by
1946, on its way to $227 in 1970; 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 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1970
In 1970, prices rose 5.7% and $100 from 1924 had the buying
power of $227; the year's average CPI of 38.8 is the level
behind every 1970 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1924 to 1970: $100 is worth $227 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1924-to-1970/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1924 to 1970. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1924-to-1970/