$100 in 1929 is worth $918 in 1996,
because prices increased 817.5% over that period, an average of
3.36% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$918
in 1996
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
817.5%
Average inflation rate
3.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$918
Price difference ($100 base)
$818
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1996
156.9
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1996
2.95%
$100 in 1929 → 1996
$918
$100 in 1996 → 1929
$10.90
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1996
Between 1929 and 1996, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 156.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 817.5%, which works out to an average of
3.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1996: the 1929 dollar
lost 89.1% of its purchasing power over
these 67 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 1996 at the same ratio, 9.18: $1,000 becomes
$9,175, and $10,000 becomes $91,754.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1996
$1.00
$9.18
$5.00
$45.88
$10.00
$91.75
$20.00
$184
$50.00
$459
$100
$918
$500
$4,588
$1,000
$9,175
$5,000
$45,877
$10,000
$91,754
$100,000
$917,544
$1,000,000
$9,175,439
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1996
Between 1929 and 1996, food rose the most, up 829.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 433.2%, against 817.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1996, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.36%
$918
Food
3.38%
$929
Apparel
2.53%
$533
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 1996
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 1929–1996 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
1990–1996
3.09%
20.0%
$918
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $181 by
1964, on its way to $918 in 1996; 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: 1996
In 1996, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $918; the year's average CPI of 156.9 is the level
behind every 1996 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $35,500 in 1996, gas averaged $1.23 a gallon, up noticeably
from the mid-decade lull, and a new home cost roughly $140,000. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the
year, ticking back up from 1995 as energy prices firmed. Washington passed two of the decade’s
more consequential laws that year: in February, the Telecommunications Act rewrote the rules for
phone, cable, and broadcast media for the first time since 1934, opening local markets to
competition and easing ownership limits; in August, a welfare overhaul ended the federal
guarantee of cash assistance, replacing it with block grants to states and time limits on
benefits. In October, the federal minimum wage rose to $4.75 an hour, its first increase in five
years and the opening step of a two-part law that would take it to $5.15 the following
September. Two sweeping new laws and a minimum wage finally on the move again made 1996 a year
that changed more about how the economy was governed than about how fast prices moved.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1996: $100 is worth $918 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1996/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1996. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1996/