$100 in 1929 is worth $1,076 in 2003,
because prices increased 976.0% over that period, an average of
3.26% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,076
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
976.0%
Average inflation rate
3.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,076
Price difference ($100 base)
$976
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1929 → 2003
$1,076
$100 in 2003 → 1929
$9.29
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2003
Between 1929 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 976.0%, which works out to an average of
3.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2003: the 1929 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 74 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 2003 at the same ratio, 10.76: $1,000 becomes
$10,760, and $10,000 becomes $107,602.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2003
$1.00
$10.76
$5.00
$53.80
$10.00
$108
$20.00
$215
$50.00
$538
$100
$1,076
$500
$5,380
$1,000
$10,760
$5,000
$53,801
$10,000
$107,602
$100,000
$1,076,023
$1,000,000
$10,760,234
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2003
Between 1929 and 2003, food rose the most, up 990.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 389.5%, against 976.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.26%
$1,076
Food
3.28%
$1,091
Apparel
2.17%
$489
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 2003
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 1929–2003 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
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$1,076
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $181 by
1964, on its way to $1,076 in 2003; 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: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,076; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2003: $100 is worth $1,076 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2003/