$100 in 1929 is worth $867 in 1994,
because prices increased 766.7% over that period, an average of
3.38% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$867
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
766.7%
Average inflation rate
3.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$867
Price difference ($100 base)
$767
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1929 → 1994
$867
$100 in 1994 → 1929
$11.54
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1994
Between 1929 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 766.7%, which works out to an average of
3.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1994: the 1929 dollar
lost 88.5% of its purchasing power over
these 65 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 1994 at the same ratio, 8.67: $1,000 becomes
$8,667, and $10,000 becomes $86,667.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1994
$1.00
$8.67
$5.00
$43.33
$10.00
$86.67
$20.00
$173
$50.00
$433
$100
$867
$500
$4,333
$1,000
$8,667
$5,000
$43,333
$10,000
$86,667
$100,000
$866,667
$1,000,000
$8,666,667
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1994
Between 1929 and 1994, food rose the most, up 774.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 440.1%, against 766.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.38%
$867
Food
3.39%
$875
Apparel
2.63%
$540
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 1994
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 1929–1994 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
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$867
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $170 by
1959, on its way to $867 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $867; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1994: $100 is worth $867 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1994/