$100 in 1929 is worth $564 in 1982,
because prices increased 464.3% over that period, an average of
3.32% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$564
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
464.3%
Average inflation rate
3.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$564
Price difference ($100 base)
$464
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1929 → 1982
$564
$100 in 1982 → 1929
$17.72
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1982
Between 1929 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 464.3%, which works out to an average of
3.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1982: the 1929 dollar
lost 82.3% of its purchasing power over
these 53 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 1982 at the same ratio, 5.64: $1,000 becomes
$5,643, and $10,000 becomes $56,433.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1982
$1.00
$5.64
$5.00
$28.22
$10.00
$56.43
$20.00
$113
$50.00
$282
$100
$564
$500
$2,822
$1,000
$5,643
$5,000
$28,216
$10,000
$56,433
$100,000
$564,327
$1,000,000
$5,643,275
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1982
Between 1929 and 1982, food rose the most, up 490.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 296.0%, against 464.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.32%
$564
Food
3.41%
$590
Apparel
2.63%
$396
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1982 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
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$564
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $157 by
1955, on its way to $564 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $564; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1982: $100 is worth $564 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1982/