$100 in 1929 is worth $582 in 1983,
because prices increased 482.5% over that period, an average of
3.32% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$582
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
482.5%
Average inflation rate
3.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$582
Price difference ($100 base)
$482
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1929 → 1983
$582
$100 in 1983 → 1929
$17.17
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1983
Between 1929 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 482.5%, which works out to an average of
3.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.17 buys in 1983: the 1929 dollar
lost 82.8% of its purchasing power over
these 54 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 1983 at the same ratio, 5.82: $1,000 becomes
$5,825, and $10,000 becomes $58,246.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1983
$1.00
$5.82
$5.00
$29.12
$10.00
$58.25
$20.00
$116
$50.00
$291
$100
$582
$500
$2,912
$1,000
$5,825
$5,000
$29,123
$10,000
$58,246
$100,000
$582,456
$1,000,000
$5,824,561
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1983
Between 1929 and 1983, food rose the most, up 502.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 305.7%, against 482.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.32%
$582
Food
3.38%
$602
Apparel
2.63%
$406
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 1983
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 1929–1983 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
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$582
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $157 by
1955, on its way to $582 in 1983; 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: 1983
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $582; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1983: $100 is worth $582 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1983/