$100 in 1929 is worth $608 in 1984,
because prices increased 507.6% over that period, an average of
3.34% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$608
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
507.6%
Average inflation rate
3.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$608
Price difference ($100 base)
$508
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1929 → 1984
$608
$100 in 1984 → 1929
$16.46
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1984
Between 1929 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 507.6%, which works out to an average of
3.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1984: the 1929 dollar
lost 83.5% of its purchasing power over
these 55 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 1984 at the same ratio, 6.08: $1,000 becomes
$6,076, and $10,000 becomes $60,760.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1984
$1.00
$6.08
$5.00
$30.38
$10.00
$60.76
$20.00
$122
$50.00
$304
$100
$608
$500
$3,038
$1,000
$6,076
$5,000
$30,380
$10,000
$60,760
$100,000
$607,602
$1,000,000
$6,076,023
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1984
Between 1929 and 1984, food rose the most, up 525.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 313.4%, against 507.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.34%
$608
Food
3.39%
$625
Apparel
2.61%
$413
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 1984
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 1929–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$608
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $164 by
1957, on its way to $608 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $608; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1984: $100 is worth $608 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1984/