$100 in 1929 is worth $764 in 1990,
because prices increased 664.3% over that period, an average of
3.39% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$764
in 1990
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
664.3%
Average inflation rate
3.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$764
Price difference ($100 base)
$664
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1990
130.7
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1990
5.40%
$100 in 1929 → 1990
$764
$100 in 1990 → 1929
$13.08
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1990
Between 1929 and 1990, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 130.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 664.3%, which works out to an average of
3.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.13 buys in 1990: the 1929 dollar
lost 86.9% of its purchasing power over
these 61 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 1990 at the same ratio, 7.64: $1,000 becomes
$7,643, and $10,000 becomes $76,433.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1990
$1.00
$7.64
$5.00
$38.22
$10.00
$76.43
$20.00
$153
$50.00
$382
$100
$764
$500
$3,822
$1,000
$7,643
$5,000
$38,216
$10,000
$76,433
$100,000
$764,327
$1,000,000
$7,643,275
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1990
Between 1929 and 1990, food rose the most, up 702.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 402.4%, against 664.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1990, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.39%
$764
Food
3.47%
$802
Apparel
2.68%
$502
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 1990
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 1929–1990 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$764
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $170 by
1959, on its way to $764 in 1990; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1990
In 1990, prices rose 5.4% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $764; the year's average CPI of 130.7 is the level
behind every 1990 figure on this page.
In 1990, the median U.S. household earned about $29,900, gas averaged $1.15 a
gallon, and mailing a letter cost a quarter. Inflation ran hot at 5.4% for the
year, its highest rate since 1982, pushed up by an oil shock after Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait, and the economy tipped into recession that summer. It was
the last gasp of elevated inflation before the long calm of the 1990s.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1990: $100 is worth $764 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1990/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1990. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1990/