$100 in 1929 is worth $315 in 1975,
because prices increased 214.6% over that period, an average of
2.52% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$315
in 1975
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
214.6%
Average inflation rate
2.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$315
Price difference ($100 base)
$215
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1975
53.8
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
$100 in 1929 → 1975
$315
$100 in 1975 → 1929
$31.78
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1975
Between 1929 and 1975, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 53.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 214.6%, which works out to an average of
2.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.32 buys in 1975: the 1929 dollar
lost 68.2% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 1975 at the same ratio, 3.15: $1,000 becomes
$3,146, and $10,000 becomes $31,462.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1975
$1.00
$3.15
$5.00
$15.73
$10.00
$31.46
$20.00
$62.92
$50.00
$157
$100
$315
$500
$1,573
$1,000
$3,146
$5,000
$15,731
$10,000
$31,462
$100,000
$314,620
$1,000,000
$3,146,199
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1975
Between 1929 and 1975, food rose the most, up 262.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 193.5%, against 214.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1975, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.52%
$315
Food
2.84%
$362
Apparel
2.37%
$294
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 1975
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.76% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1975 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$227
1970–1975
6.76%
38.7%
$315
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $152 by
1951, on its way to $315 in 1975; 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: 1975
In 1975, prices rose 9.1% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $315; the year's average CPI of 53.8 is the level
behind every 1975 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 9.1% in 1975, easing slightly from 1974’s
11.0% but still running far above anything the country had experienced before
the decade began. The recession that started in November 1973, the deepest
since the Great Depression, bottomed out that March, yet unemployment kept
climbing through the year and touched 9%, a combination of high inflation and
high joblessness that had no precedent in the postwar data. Vietnam ended
that April 30, when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon and the last
Americans were evacuated by helicopter from the U.S. embassy roof. Fiscal
strain hit closer to home too: New York City, facing bankruptcy after years
of borrowing to paper over budget gaps, asked Washington for help that
October. President Ford’s initial refusal produced the Daily News headline
“Ford to City: Drop Dead,” though he ultimately signed a federal loan package
that December. Amid the gloom, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft
that April in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to sell a version of the BASIC
programming language for the Altair 8800, one of the first personal
computers sold to hobbyists. A median household earned $11,800 in 1975, a new
home sold for a median $39,300, and first-class postage held at 10 cents,
unchanged since 1974’s increase. Consumer prices stood 443.4%
above their 1913 level, with the decade barely past its
midpoint.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1975: $100 is worth $315 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1975/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1975. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1975/