$100 in 1929 is worth $333 in 1976,
because prices increased 232.7% over that period, an average of
2.59% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$333
in 1976
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
232.7%
Average inflation rate
2.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$333
Price difference ($100 base)
$233
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1976
56.9
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1976
5.76%
$100 in 1929 → 1976
$333
$100 in 1976 → 1929
$30.05
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1976
Between 1929 and 1976, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 56.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 232.7%, which works out to an average of
2.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.30 buys in 1976: the 1929 dollar
lost 69.9% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 1976 at the same ratio, 3.33: $1,000 becomes
$3,327, and $10,000 becomes $33,275.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1976
$1.00
$3.33
$5.00
$16.64
$10.00
$33.27
$20.00
$66.55
$50.00
$166
$100
$333
$500
$1,664
$1,000
$3,327
$5,000
$16,637
$10,000
$33,275
$100,000
$332,749
$1,000,000
$3,327,485
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1976
Between 1929 and 1976, food rose the most, up 273.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 204.5%, against 232.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1976, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.59%
$333
Food
2.84%
$373
Apparel
2.40%
$304
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 1976
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.59% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1976 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
1970–1976
6.59%
46.6%
$333
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $156 by
1953, on its way to $333 in 1976; 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: 1976
In 1976, prices rose 5.8% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $333; the year's average CPI of 56.9 is the level
behind every 1976 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.8% in 1976, the calmest pace since 1972,
as the economy pulled out of the 1973-75 recession and price growth settled
to roughly half its 1974 peak. The recovery gave Americans
room to celebrate: tall ships filled New York Harbor and fireworks lit cities
nationwide on July 4 for the country’s bicentennial, a rare moment of shared
celebration after Vietnam and Watergate. Politically, Jimmy Carter, a former
Georgia governor running as a Washington outsider, defeated incumbent Gerald
Ford that November, campaigning on restoring trust in government and bringing
down inflation and unemployment together. In a California garage, Steve
Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer that April to
sell the Apple I, a bare circuit board aimed at electronics hobbyists, a
business that looked far from consequential at the time. First-class
postage, which had risen to 13 cents that past December 31, held there
through the year, the longest stretch without a rate change since the Postal
Service’s creation. A median household earned $12,686 in 1976, a new home
sold for a median $44,200, and gas averaged 59 cents a gallon. Consumer
prices stood 474.7% above their 1913 level, a calm interlude
before inflation turned back up.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1976: $100 is worth $333 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1976/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1976. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1976/