$100 in 1929 is worth $820 in 1992,
because prices increased 720.5% over that period, an average of
3.40% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$820
in 1992
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
720.5%
Average inflation rate
3.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$820
Price difference ($100 base)
$720
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1992
140.3
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1992
3.01%
$100 in 1929 → 1992
$820
$100 in 1992 → 1929
$12.19
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1992
Between 1929 and 1992, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 140.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 720.5%, which works out to an average of
3.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1992: the 1929 dollar
lost 87.8% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 1992 at the same ratio, 8.20: $1,000 becomes
$8,205, and $10,000 becomes $82,047.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1992
$1.00
$8.20
$5.00
$41.02
$10.00
$82.05
$20.00
$164
$50.00
$410
$100
$820
$500
$4,102
$1,000
$8,205
$5,000
$41,023
$10,000
$82,047
$100,000
$820,468
$1,000,000
$8,204,678
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1992
Between 1929 and 1992, food rose the most, up 735.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 434.0%, against 720.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1992, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.40%
$820
Food
3.43%
$836
Apparel
2.69%
$534
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 1992
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 1929–1992 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
1990–1992
3.61%
7.3%
$820
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $170 by
1959, on its way to $820 in 1992; 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: 1992
In 1992, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $820; the year's average CPI of 140.3 is the level
behind every 1992 figure on this page.
1992 was the year the recovery finally showed up in the numbers, if not yet in hiring. The
median household earned about $30,600, gas averaged $1.13 a gallon, and a new home cost roughly
$121,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, its calmest reading since the mid-1980s, as energy
prices stayed well below their 1990 peak and a slack labor market kept a lid on wages and prices
alike. The Federal Reserve kept cutting its policy rate through the year, reaching about 3% by
September, the lowest in decades, trying to jump-start hiring more than a year after the 1990-91
recession officially ended. The sluggish job market became the defining issue of the November
election, and Bill Clinton unseated incumbent George H.W. Bush, whose approval ratings had
fallen sharply from their post-Gulf War highs. In August, Hurricane Andrew tore through South
Florida, the costliest U.S. hurricane on record at the time, causing tens of billions of dollars
in damage and reshaping how insurers priced catastrophe risk for years afterward. Falling rates,
a costly hurricane, and an election fought over jobs defined a recovery that showed up in the
data well before it showed up in most paychecks.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1992: $100 is worth $820 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1992/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1992. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1992/