$100 in 1929 is worth $164 in 1957,
because prices increased 64.3% over that period, an average of
1.79% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$164
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
64.3%
Average inflation rate
1.79% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$164
Price difference ($100 base)
$64.33
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1929 → 1957
$164
$100 in 1957 → 1929
$60.85
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1957
Between 1929 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 64.3%, which works out to an average of
1.79% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.61 buys in 1957: the 1929 dollar
lost 39.1% of its purchasing power over
these 28 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 1957 at the same ratio, 1.64: $1,000 becomes
$1,643, and $10,000 becomes $16,433.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.64
$5.00
$8.22
$10.00
$16.43
$20.00
$32.87
$50.00
$82.16
$100
$164
$500
$822
$1,000
$1,643
$5,000
$8,216
$10,000
$16,433
$100,000
$164,327
$1,000,000
$1,643,275
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1957
Between 1929 and 1957, apparel rose the most, up 80.2%, while food rose the least, up 75.2%, against 64.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.79%
$164
Apparel
2.12%
$180
Food
2.02%
$175
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 1957
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 1929–1957 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
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$164
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $101 by
1943, on its way to $164 in 1957; 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 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $164; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1957: $100 is worth $164 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1957/