$100 in 1929 is worth $845 in 1993,
because prices increased 745.0% over that period, an average of
3.39% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$845
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
745.0%
Average inflation rate
3.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$845
Price difference ($100 base)
$745
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1929 → 1993
$845
$100 in 1993 → 1929
$11.83
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1993
Between 1929 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 745.0%, which works out to an average of
3.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1993: the 1929 dollar
lost 88.2% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 1993 at the same ratio, 8.45: $1,000 becomes
$8,450, and $10,000 becomes $84,503.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1993
$1.00
$8.45
$5.00
$42.25
$10.00
$84.50
$20.00
$169
$50.00
$423
$100
$845
$500
$4,225
$1,000
$8,450
$5,000
$42,251
$10,000
$84,503
$100,000
$845,029
$1,000,000
$8,450,292
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1993
Between 1929 and 1993, food rose the most, up 753.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 441.3%, against 745.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.39%
$845
Food
3.41%
$854
Apparel
2.67%
$541
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 1993
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 1929–1993 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
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$845
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $170 by
1959, on its way to $845 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $845; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1993: $100 is worth $845 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1993/