$100 in 1927 is worth $98.28 in 1929,
because prices declined 1.7% over that period, an average of
0.87% a year.
$100 in 1927 has
the same buying power as
$98.28
in 1929
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-1.7%
Average inflation rate
-0.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$98.28
Price difference ($100 base)
-$1.72
CPI in 1927
17.4
CPI in 1929
17.1
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
$100 in 1927 → 1929
$98.28
$100 in 1929 → 1927
$102
What happened to prices between 1927 and 1929
Between 1927 and 1929, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.4 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices declined 1.7%, which works out to an average of
-0.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1927 bought what
$1.02 buys in 1929: the 1927 dollar
gained 1.8% in purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
Every 1927 amount converts to 1929 at the same ratio, 0.98: $1,000 becomes
$983, and $10,000 becomes $9,828.
Amount in 1927
Value in 1929
$1.00
$0.98
$5.00
$4.91
$10.00
$9.83
$20.00
$19.66
$50.00
$49.14
$100
$98.28
$500
$491
$1,000
$983
$5,000
$4,914
$10,000
$9,828
$100,000
$98,276
$1,000,000
$982,759
Inflation by spending category, 1927–1929
Between 1927 and 1929, food rose the most, up 0.6%, while apparel fell 2.4%, against 1.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1927
spending costs in 1929, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1927 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.87%
$98.28
Food
0.30%
$101
Apparel
-1.19%
$97.63
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1927: 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 1927
$100 from 1927 had already become $98.28 by
1928, on its way to $98.28 in 1929; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 0.0% in 1929, and prices fell 1.7% in 1928, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1929, prices rose 0.0% and $100 from 1927 had the buying
power of $98.28; 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 1927 to 1929: $100 is worth $98.28 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1929/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1927 to 1929. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1929/