$100 in 1929 is worth $381 in 1978,
because prices increased 281.3% over that period, an average of
2.77% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$381
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
281.3%
Average inflation rate
2.77% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$381
Price difference ($100 base)
$281
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1929 → 1978
$381
$100 in 1978 → 1929
$26.23
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1978
Between 1929 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 281.3%, which works out to an average of
2.77% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.26 buys in 1978: the 1929 dollar
lost 73.8% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 1978 at the same ratio, 3.81: $1,000 becomes
$3,813, and $10,000 becomes $38,129.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1978
$1.00
$3.81
$5.00
$19.06
$10.00
$38.13
$20.00
$76.26
$50.00
$191
$100
$381
$500
$1,906
$1,000
$3,813
$5,000
$19,064
$10,000
$38,129
$100,000
$381,287
$1,000,000
$3,812,865
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1978
Between 1929 and 1978, food rose the most, up 336.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 229.6%, against 281.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.77%
$381
Food
3.05%
$436
Apparel
2.46%
$330
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$381
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $156 by
1953, on its way to $381 in 1978; 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: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $381; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1978: $100 is worth $381 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1978/