$100 in 1929 is worth $1,142 in 2005,
because prices increased 1042.1% over that period, an average of
3.26% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,142
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1042.1%
Average inflation rate
3.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,142
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,042
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1929 → 2005
$1,142
$100 in 2005 → 1929
$8.76
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2005
Between 1929 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1042.1%, which works out to an average of
3.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2005: the 1929 dollar
lost 91.2% of its purchasing power over
these 76 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 2005 at the same ratio, 11.42: $1,000 becomes
$11,421, and $10,000 becomes $114,211.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2005
$1.00
$11.42
$5.00
$57.11
$10.00
$114
$20.00
$228
$50.00
$571
$100
$1,142
$500
$5,711
$1,000
$11,421
$5,000
$57,105
$10,000
$114,211
$100,000
$1,142,105
$1,000,000
$11,421,053
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2005
Between 1929 and 2005, food rose the most, up 1055.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 383.8%, against 1042.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.26%
$1,142
Food
3.27%
$1,156
Apparel
2.10%
$484
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 2005
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 1929–2005 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
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$1,142
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $215 by
1969, on its way to $1,142 in 2005; 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: 2005
In 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,142; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2005: $100 is worth $1,142 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2005/