$100 in 1929 is worth $215 in 1969,
because prices increased 114.6% over that period, an average of
1.93% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$215
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
114.6%
Average inflation rate
1.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$215
Price difference ($100 base)
$115
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1929 → 1969
$215
$100 in 1969 → 1929
$46.59
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1969
Between 1929 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 114.6%, which works out to an average of
1.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.47 buys in 1969: the 1929 dollar
lost 53.4% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 1969 at the same ratio, 2.15: $1,000 becomes
$2,146, and $10,000 becomes $21,462.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1969
$1.00
$2.15
$5.00
$10.73
$10.00
$21.46
$20.00
$42.92
$50.00
$107
$100
$215
$500
$1,073
$1,000
$2,146
$5,000
$10,731
$10,000
$21,462
$100,000
$214,620
$1,000,000
$2,146,199
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1969
Between 1929 and 1969, apparel rose the most, up 130.0%, while food rose the least, up 124.8%, against 114.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.93%
$215
Apparel
2.10%
$230
Food
2.05%
$225
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 1969
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 1929–1969 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
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$215
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $139 by
1949, on its way to $215 in 1969; 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: 1969
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $215; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1969: $100 is worth $215 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1969/