$100 in 1929 is worth $482 in 1980,
because prices increased 381.9% over that period, an average of
3.13% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$482
in 1980
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
381.9%
Average inflation rate
3.13% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$482
Price difference ($100 base)
$382
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1980
82.4
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
$100 in 1929 → 1980
$482
$100 in 1980 → 1929
$20.75
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1980
Between 1929 and 1980, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 82.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 381.9%, which works out to an average of
3.13% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.21 buys in 1980: the 1929 dollar
lost 79.2% of its purchasing power over
these 51 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 1980 at the same ratio, 4.82: $1,000 becomes
$4,819, and $10,000 becomes $48,187.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1980
$1.00
$4.82
$5.00
$24.09
$10.00
$48.19
$20.00
$96.37
$50.00
$241
$100
$482
$500
$2,409
$1,000
$4,819
$5,000
$24,094
$10,000
$48,187
$100,000
$481,871
$1,000,000
$4,818,713
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1980
Between 1929 and 1980, food rose the most, up 426.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 268.0%, against 381.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1980, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.13%
$482
Food
3.31%
$526
Apparel
2.59%
$368
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 1980
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1980 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$482
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $157 by
1955, on its way to $482 in 1980; 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: 1980
In 1980, prices rose 13.5% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $482; the year's average CPI of 82.4 is the level
behind every 1980 figure on this page.
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1980: $100 is worth $482 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1980/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1980. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1980/