$100 in 1929 is worth $130 in 1947,
because prices increased 30.4% over that period, an average of
1.49% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$130
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
30.4%
Average inflation rate
1.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$130
Price difference ($100 base)
$30.41
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1929 → 1947
$130
$100 in 1947 → 1929
$76.68
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1947
Between 1929 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 30.4%, which works out to an average of
1.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.77 buys in 1947: the 1929 dollar
lost 23.3% of its purchasing power over
these 18 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 1947 at the same ratio, 1.30: $1,000 becomes
$1,304, and $10,000 becomes $13,041.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.30
$5.00
$6.52
$10.00
$13.04
$20.00
$26.08
$50.00
$65.20
$100
$130
$500
$652
$1,000
$1,304
$5,000
$6,520
$10,000
$13,041
$100,000
$130,409
$1,000,000
$1,304,094
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1947
Between 1929 and 1947, apparel rose the most, up 61.5%, while food rose the least, up 46.1%, against 30.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.49%
$130
Apparel
2.70%
$162
Food
2.13%
$146
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 1947
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.88% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1947 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1929, at end
1929–1930
-2.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$130
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $82.46 by
1938, on its way to $130 in 1947; 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.
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $130; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1947: $100 is worth $130 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1947/