$100 in 1929 is worth $953 in 1998,
because prices increased 853.2% over that period, an average of
3.32% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$953
in 1998
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
853.2%
Average inflation rate
3.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$953
Price difference ($100 base)
$853
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1998
163
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1998
1.56%
$100 in 1929 → 1998
$953
$100 in 1998 → 1929
$10.49
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1998
Between 1929 and 1998, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 163.
Cumulatively, prices increased 853.2%, which works out to an average of
3.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.10 buys in 1998: the 1929 dollar
lost 89.5% of its purchasing power over
these 69 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 1998 at the same ratio, 9.53: $1,000 becomes
$9,532, and $10,000 becomes $95,322.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1998
$1.00
$9.53
$5.00
$47.66
$10.00
$95.32
$20.00
$191
$50.00
$477
$100
$953
$500
$4,766
$1,000
$9,532
$5,000
$47,661
$10,000
$95,322
$100,000
$953,216
$1,000,000
$9,532,164
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1998
Between 1929 and 1998, food rose the most, up 873.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 438.5%, against 853.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1998, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.32%
$953
Food
3.35%
$974
Apparel
2.47%
$538
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 1998
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 1929–1998 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
1990–1998
2.80%
24.7%
$953
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $181 by
1964, on its way to $953 in 1998; 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: 1998
In 1998, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $953; the year's average CPI of 163 is the level
behind every 1998 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $38,900 in 1998, gas averaged just $1.06 a gallon, its
cheapest of the decade, and a new home cost roughly $152,500. Inflation ran at 1.6% for the
year, the lowest of the 1990s, as a glut of crude oil, worsened by weak demand from Asia’s
slowdown, pushed prices below $11 a barrel by December and pulled pump prices down with them.
The calm at home came alongside real turmoil abroad: in August, Russia devalued the ruble and
defaulted on its domestic debt, rattling markets already unsettled by the Asian financial
crisis, and in September the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management collapsed after its highly
leveraged bets went bad, prompting the Federal Reserve to organize a private-sector bailout by
more than a dozen banks to prevent a disorderly unwinding of its roughly $100 billion in
positions. The Fed also cut interest rates three times that fall, in September, October, and
November, an insurance policy against the global financial turmoil spreading to the U.S.
economy. Cheap oil and a well-timed set of rate cuts left 1998 as a year the U.S. economy
absorbed two foreign financial crises without much of a dent at home.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 1998: $100 is worth $953 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1998/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1998. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1998/