$100 in 1929 is worth $629 in 1985,
because prices increased 529.2% over that period, an average of
3.34% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$629
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
529.2%
Average inflation rate
3.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$629
Price difference ($100 base)
$529
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1929 → 1985
$629
$100 in 1985 → 1929
$15.89
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1985
Between 1929 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 529.2%, which works out to an average of
3.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1985: the 1929 dollar
lost 84.1% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 1985 at the same ratio, 6.29: $1,000 becomes
$6,292, and $10,000 becomes $62,924.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1985
$1.00
$6.29
$5.00
$31.46
$10.00
$62.92
$20.00
$126
$50.00
$315
$100
$629
$500
$3,146
$1,000
$6,292
$5,000
$31,462
$10,000
$62,924
$100,000
$629,240
$1,000,000
$6,292,398
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1985
Between 1929 and 1985, food rose the most, up 540.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 325.1%, against 529.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.34%
$629
Food
3.37%
$640
Apparel
2.62%
$425
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 1985
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 1929–1985 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
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$629
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $164 by
1957, on its way to $629 in 1985; 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: 1985
In 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $629; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1985: $100 is worth $629 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1985/