$100 in 1929 is worth $184 in 1965,
because prices increased 84.2% over that period, an average of
1.71% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$184
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
84.2%
Average inflation rate
1.71% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$184
Price difference ($100 base)
$84.21
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1929 → 1965
$184
$100 in 1965 → 1929
$54.29
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1965
Between 1929 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 84.2%, which works out to an average of
1.71% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.54 buys in 1965: the 1929 dollar
lost 45.7% of its purchasing power over
these 36 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.84: $1,000 becomes
$1,842, and $10,000 becomes $18,421.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.84
$5.00
$9.21
$10.00
$18.42
$20.00
$36.84
$50.00
$92.11
$100
$184
$500
$921
$1,000
$1,842
$5,000
$9,211
$10,000
$18,421
$100,000
$184,211
$1,000,000
$1,842,105
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1965
Between 1929 and 1965, food rose the most, up 95.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 93.5%, against 84.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.71%
$184
Food
1.87%
$195
Apparel
1.85%
$194
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 1965
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 1929–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$184
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $130 by
1947, on its way to $184 in 1965; 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: 1965
In 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $184; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1965: $100 is worth $184 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1965/