$100 in 1929 is worth $1,052 in 2002,
because prices increased 952.0% over that period, an average of
3.28% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,052
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
952.0%
Average inflation rate
3.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,052
Price difference ($100 base)
$952
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1929 → 2002
$1,052
$100 in 2002 → 1929
$9.51
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2002
Between 1929 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 952.0%, which works out to an average of
3.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2002: the 1929 dollar
lost 90.5% of its purchasing power over
these 73 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 2002 at the same ratio, 10.52: $1,000 becomes
$10,520, and $10,000 becomes $105,205.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2002
$1.00
$10.52
$5.00
$52.60
$10.00
$105
$20.00
$210
$50.00
$526
$100
$1,052
$500
$5,260
$1,000
$10,520
$5,000
$52,602
$10,000
$105,205
$100,000
$1,052,047
$1,000,000
$10,520,468
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2002
Between 1929 and 2002, food rose the most, up 967.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 402.0%, against 952.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.28%
$1,052
Food
3.30%
$1,068
Apparel
2.23%
$502
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 2002
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 1929–2002 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,007
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$1,052
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $181 by
1964, on its way to $1,052 in 2002; 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: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,052; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2002: $100 is worth $1,052 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2002/