$100 in 1929 is worth $76.02 in 1933,
because prices declined 24.0% over that period, an average of
6.62% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$76.02
in 1933
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-24.0%
Average inflation rate
-6.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$76.02
Price difference ($100 base)
-$23.98
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1933
13
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
$100 in 1929 → 1933
$76.02
$100 in 1933 → 1929
$132
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1933
Between 1929 and 1933, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 13.
Cumulatively, prices declined 24.0%, which works out to an average of
-6.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$1.32 buys in 1933: the 1929 dollar
gained 31.5% in purchasing power over
these 4 years.
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.
Every 1929 amount converts to 1933 at the same ratio, 0.76: $1,000 becomes
$760, and $10,000 becomes $7,602.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1933
$1.00
$0.76
$5.00
$3.80
$10.00
$7.60
$20.00
$15.20
$50.00
$38.01
$100
$76.02
$500
$380
$1,000
$760
$5,000
$3,801
$10,000
$7,602
$100,000
$76,023
$1,000,000
$760,234
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1933
Every category fell between 1929 and 1933: food the most, down 37.0%, and apparel the least, down 23.9%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1933, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
-6.62%
$76.02
Apparel
-6.60%
$76.11
Food
-10.90%
$63.03
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1929: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1929 to 1933
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (2.3% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (8.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1933 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1929, at end
1929–1930
-2.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1933
-8.01%
-22.2%
$76.02
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $88.89 by
1931, on its way to $76.02 in 1933; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at -2.3% in 1930, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1933, prices fell 5.1% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $76.02; the year's average CPI of 13 is the level
behind every 1933 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 5.1% in 1933, a smaller decline than 1932’s
but enough to complete a four-year slide of 24.0% from the 1929
peak. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the trough of that
contraction to March 1933, closing out the longest downturn in its
chronology, one that had run 43 months since August 1929. The bottom
arrived alongside a change in government: Franklin D. Roosevelt was
inaugurated March 4 and, within 48 hours, ordered every bank in the country
closed to halt a fresh round of runs. Congress passed the Emergency Banking
Act on March 9, letting solvent banks reopen under federal supervision, and
the panic that had been building for months broke almost immediately. The
administration moved on the currency next: Executive Order 6102, issued
April 5, required Americans to turn in most gold coin, bullion, and
certificates to the Federal Reserve, taking the country off the domestic
gold standard (formal devaluation of the dollar followed the next January).
Congress capped the year’s banking overhaul in June with the Banking Act of
1933, commonly called Glass-Steagall, which created the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation and separated commercial banking from investment
banking. Even after four straight years of falling prices, the CPI still
stood 31.3% above its 1913 level. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1933: $100 is worth $76.02 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1933/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1933. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1933/