$100 in 1928 is worth $97.66 in 1930,
because prices declined 2.3% over that period, an average of
1.18% a year.
$100 in 1928 has
the same buying power as
$97.66
in 1930
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-2.3%
Average inflation rate
-1.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$97.66
Price difference ($100 base)
-$2.34
CPI in 1928
17.1
CPI in 1930
16.7
Inflation in 1928
-1.72%
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
$100 in 1928 → 1930
$97.66
$100 in 1930 → 1928
$102
What happened to prices between 1928 and 1930
Between 1928 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
-1.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1928 bought what
$1.02 buys in 1930: the 1928 dollar
gained 2.4% in purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1928, the second straight year of mild decline
even as the stock market climbed sharply, a widening gap between asset
prices and the cost of living that later economists pointed to as an early
warning sign. The Federal Reserve tightened policy repeatedly over the year,
raising its discount rate in an effort to slow the flood of borrowed money
pouring into stock purchases without derailing the broader economy, a
balancing act it ultimately failed to manage. Herbert Hoover won the
presidential election that November, defeating Democrat Al Smith on a
platform built around continuing the prosperity of the Coolidge years; few
voters or policymakers anticipated how quickly that prosperity would end.
First-class postage remained at 2 cents, a price that had now held for nine
straight years.
Every 1928 amount converts to 1930 at the same ratio, 0.98: $1,000 becomes
$977, and $10,000 becomes $9,766.
Amount in 1928
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, 1928–1930
Every category fell between 1928 and 1930: food the most, down 4.3%, and apparel the least, down 3.2%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1928
spending costs in 1930, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1928 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.18%
$97.66
Apparel
-1.61%
$96.80
Food
-2.17%
$95.71
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1928: 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 1928
$100 from 1928 had already become $100 by
1929, 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 0.0% in 1929, and prices fell 2.3% in 1930, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1930, prices fell 2.3% and $100 from 1928 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 1928 to 1930: $100 is worth $97.66 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1928-to-1930/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1928 to 1930. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1928-to-1930/