$100 in 1929 is worth $156 in 1953,
because prices increased 56.1% over that period, an average of
1.87% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$156
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.1%
Average inflation rate
1.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$156
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.14
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1929 → 1953
$156
$100 in 1953 → 1929
$64.04
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1953
Between 1929 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.1%, which works out to an average of
1.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1953: the 1929 dollar
lost 36.0% of its purchasing power over
these 24 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 1953 at the same ratio, 1.56: $1,000 becomes
$1,561, and $10,000 becomes $15,614.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.56
$5.00
$7.81
$10.00
$15.61
$20.00
$31.23
$50.00
$78.07
$100
$156
$500
$781
$1,000
$1,561
$5,000
$7,807
$10,000
$15,614
$100,000
$156,140
$1,000,000
$1,561,404
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1953
Between 1929 and 1953, apparel rose the most, up 74.5%, while food rose the least, up 71.5%, against 56.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.87%
$156
Apparel
2.35%
$174
Food
2.27%
$172
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 1953
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1953 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$156
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $85.96 by
1941, on its way to $156 in 1953; 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 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $156; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1953: $100 is worth $156 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1953/