$100 in 1929 is worth $169 in 1958,
because prices increased 69.0% over that period, an average of
1.83% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$169
in 1958
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
69.0%
Average inflation rate
1.83% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$169
Price difference ($100 base)
$69.01
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1958
28.9
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1958
2.85%
$100 in 1929 → 1958
$169
$100 in 1958 → 1929
$59.17
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1958
Between 1929 and 1958, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 28.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 69.0%, which works out to an average of
1.83% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1958: the 1929 dollar
lost 40.8% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 1958 at the same ratio, 1.69: $1,000 becomes
$1,690, and $10,000 becomes $16,901.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1958
$1.00
$1.69
$5.00
$8.45
$10.00
$16.90
$20.00
$33.80
$50.00
$84.50
$100
$169
$500
$845
$1,000
$1,690
$5,000
$8,450
$10,000
$16,901
$100,000
$169,006
$1,000,000
$1,690,058
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1958
Between 1929 and 1958, food rose the most, up 83.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 80.6%, against 69.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1958, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.83%
$169
Food
2.11%
$183
Apparel
2.06%
$181
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 1958
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 1929–1958 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
1950–1958
2.30%
19.9%
$169
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $101 by
1943, on its way to $169 in 1958; 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 1958, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $169; the year's average CPI of 28.9 is the level
behind every 1958 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.8% in 1958, down only slightly from
1957’s 3.3% even as the country sank into the sharpest
postwar recession to that point, an early sign that inflation and a
shrinking economy could coexist rather than trade off against each other.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the downturn’s trough to
that April, with unemployment peaking near 7.5% that summer, the worst
reading since the 1930s. The Post Office raised first-class postage to 4
cents that August 1, up from 3 cents, the rate’s first change since 1932.
Washington answered the Soviet Union’s technological lead that summer
too: Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29,
establishing NASA, which opened for business that October 1 to compete
with the Soviet space program after the shock of Sputnik the year before.
Consumer prices finished 1958 191.9% above their 1913
level. The minimum wage held at $1.00 an hour, and first-class postage
rose to 4 cents that August, the first increase since 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1958: $100 is worth $169 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1958/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1958. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1958/