$100 in 1929 is worth $189 in 1966,
because prices increased 89.5% over that period, an average of
1.74% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$189
in 1966
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
89.5%
Average inflation rate
1.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$189
Price difference ($100 base)
$89.47
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1966
32.4
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1966
2.86%
$100 in 1929 → 1966
$189
$100 in 1966 → 1929
$52.78
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1966
Between 1929 and 1966, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 32.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 89.5%, which works out to an average of
1.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1966: the 1929 dollar
lost 47.2% of its purchasing power over
these 37 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 1966 at the same ratio, 1.89: $1,000 becomes
$1,895, and $10,000 becomes $18,947.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1966
$1.00
$1.89
$5.00
$9.47
$10.00
$18.95
$20.00
$37.89
$50.00
$94.74
$100
$189
$500
$947
$1,000
$1,895
$5,000
$9,474
$10,000
$18,947
$100,000
$189,474
$1,000,000
$1,894,737
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1966
Between 1929 and 1966, food rose the most, up 104.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 98.4%, against 89.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1966, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.74%
$189
Food
1.96%
$205
Apparel
1.87%
$198
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 1966
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 1929–1966 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
1960–1966
1.52%
9.5%
$189
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $130 by
1947, on its way to $189 in 1966; 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: 1966
In 1966, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $189; the year's average CPI of 32.4 is the level
behind every 1966 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.9% in 1966, nearly double 1965’s
1.6% as Vietnam War spending kept climbing without an offsetting tax
increase, pushing the economy closer to capacity and prices higher along
with it. Medicare coverage took effect that July 1, extending federal
health insurance to roughly 19 million Americans age 65 and older under
the program signed into law the year before. The Federal Reserve had
already moved to cool the overheating economy, raising its discount rate
the previous December over White House objections; the tightening carried
into 1966 as the first postwar credit crunch, freezing parts of the
housing and municipal bond markets even as inflation kept climbing. Congress widened
the wage floor’s reach that September 23, when the Fair Labor Standards
Amendments of 1966 set a $1.40 minimum wage effective the following
February and extended coverage to roughly 9 million more workers in
retail, hospitals, schools, and other services not previously covered.
Consumer prices finished 1966 227.3% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
$1.25 an hour for the rest of the year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1966: $100 is worth $189 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1966/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1966. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1966/