$100 in 1929 is worth $891 in 1995,
because prices increased 791.2% over that period, an average of
3.37% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$891
in 1995
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
791.2%
Average inflation rate
3.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$891
Price difference ($100 base)
$791
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1995
152.4
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1995
2.83%
$100 in 1929 → 1995
$891
$100 in 1995 → 1929
$11.22
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1995
Between 1929 and 1995, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 152.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 791.2%, which works out to an average of
3.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1995: the 1929 dollar
lost 88.8% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 1995 at the same ratio, 8.91: $1,000 becomes
$8,912, and $10,000 becomes $89,123.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1995
$1.00
$8.91
$5.00
$44.56
$10.00
$89.12
$20.00
$178
$50.00
$446
$100
$891
$500
$4,456
$1,000
$8,912
$5,000
$44,561
$10,000
$89,123
$100,000
$891,228
$1,000,000
$8,912,281
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1995
Between 1929 and 1995, food rose the most, up 799.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 434.4%, against 791.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1995, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.37%
$891
Food
3.38%
$899
Apparel
2.57%
$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 1995
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 1929–1995 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
1990–1995
3.12%
16.6%
$891
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $181 by
1964, on its way to $891 in 1995; 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: 1995
In 1995, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $891; the year's average CPI of 152.4 is the level
behind every 1995 figure on this page.
In 1995, gas averaged $1.15 a gallon, a new home cost roughly $133,900, and the median household
earned about $34,100. Inflation ran at 2.8% for the year, little changed from 1994, as the
Federal Reserve shifted from raising rates to cutting them. Having lifted its policy rate six
times the year before, the Fed judged by July that the economy had cooled enough on its own, and
trimmed rates instead, an outcome economists would later point to as a rare soft landing. The
year opened with a currency crisis: Mexico’s peso lost roughly half its value against the dollar
in a matter of weeks, and the U.S. Treasury and the IMF assembled a $50 billion rescue package,
controversial in Congress, to stabilize it and keep the crisis from spreading to other emerging
markets. Closer to home, a budget standoff between President Clinton and the Republican Congress
shut down federal agencies twice, first for five days in November and then for 21 days spanning
December into January 1996, the longest shutdown up to that point. The Postal Service raised the
cost of a first-class stamp to 32 cents in January. Low, steady inflation was about the only calm
part of 1995’s economic story.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1995: $100 is worth $891 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1995/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1995. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1995/