$100 in 1929 is worth $80.12 in 1935,
because prices declined 19.9% over that period, an average of
3.63% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$80.12
in 1935
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-19.9%
Average inflation rate
-3.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$80.12
Price difference ($100 base)
-$19.88
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1935
13.7
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1935
2.24%
$100 in 1929 → 1935
$80.12
$100 in 1935 → 1929
$125
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1935
Between 1929 and 1935, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 13.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 19.9%, which works out to an average of
-3.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$1.25 buys in 1935: the 1929 dollar
gained 24.8% in purchasing power over
these 6 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 1935 at the same ratio, 0.80: $1,000 becomes
$801, and $10,000 becomes $8,012.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1935
$1.00
$0.80
$5.00
$4.01
$10.00
$8.01
$20.00
$16.02
$50.00
$40.06
$100
$80.12
$500
$401
$1,000
$801
$5,000
$4,006
$10,000
$8,012
$100,000
$80,117
$1,000,000
$801,170
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1935
Every category fell between 1929 and 1935: food the most, down 24.8%, and apparel the least, down 15.8%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1935, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
-3.63%
$80.12
Apparel
-2.82%
$84.21
Food
-4.65%
$75.15
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 1935
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (2.3% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (3.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1935 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1929, at end
1929–1930
-2.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1935
-3.88%
-18.0%
$80.12
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $80.12 by
1932, on its way to $80.12 in 1935; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.1% in 1934, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1935, prices rose 2.2% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $80.12; the year's average CPI of 13.7 is the level
behind every 1935 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.2% in 1935, a second straight annual increase after
1934’s turnaround, though the CPI still sat well below its
1929 peak and the recovery remained uneven and incomplete.
The year’s biggest legislative achievements aimed at making that unevenness
less punishing. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14,
creating federal old-age pensions and unemployment insurance funded by a new
payroll tax, the first federal safety net of its kind in U.S. history. That
spring, the Works Progress Administration had already begun putting millions
of unemployed Americans to work on public construction, arts, and
infrastructure projects, becoming the largest jobs program of the New Deal.
Congress added labor protections to the mix that July with the National
Labor Relations Act, guaranteeing most private-sector workers the right to
organize and bargain collectively. The human cost of the Dust Bowl was still
mounting on the Plains: the storm known as Black Sunday hit on April 14,
one of the worst of the decade, and continued drought kept driving farm
families off land that could no longer support them. Consumer prices ended
the year 38.4% above their 1913 level. First-class postage
held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1935: $100 is worth $80.12 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1935/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1935. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1935/