$100 in 1929 is worth $179 in 1963,
because prices increased 78.9% over that period, an average of
1.73% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$179
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
78.9%
Average inflation rate
1.73% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$179
Price difference ($100 base)
$78.95
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1929 → 1963
$179
$100 in 1963 → 1929
$55.88
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1963
Between 1929 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 78.9%, which works out to an average of
1.73% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1963: the 1929 dollar
lost 44.1% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.79: $1,000 becomes
$1,789, and $10,000 becomes $17,895.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.79
$5.00
$8.95
$10.00
$17.89
$20.00
$35.79
$50.00
$89.47
$100
$179
$500
$895
$1,000
$1,789
$5,000
$8,947
$10,000
$17,895
$100,000
$178,947
$1,000,000
$1,789,474
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1963
Between 1929 and 1963, apparel rose the most, up 89.9%, while food rose the least, up 88.5%, against 78.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.73%
$179
Apparel
1.90%
$190
Food
1.88%
$188
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 1963
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 1929–1963 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
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$173
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$179
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $105 by
1945, on its way to $179 in 1963; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1963
In 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $179; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1963: $100 is worth $179 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1963/