$100 in 1929 is worth $1,315 in 2011,
because prices increased 1215.4% over that period, an average of
3.19% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,315
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1215.4%
Average inflation rate
3.19% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,315
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,215
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1929 → 2011
$1,315
$100 in 2011 → 1929
$7.60
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2011
Between 1929 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1215.4%, which works out to an average of
3.19% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2011: the 1929 dollar
lost 92.4% of its purchasing power over
these 82 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 2011 at the same ratio, 13.15: $1,000 becomes
$13,154, and $10,000 becomes $131,543.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2011
$1.00
$13.15
$5.00
$65.77
$10.00
$132
$20.00
$263
$50.00
$658
$100
$1,315
$500
$6,577
$1,000
$13,154
$5,000
$65,772
$10,000
$131,543
$100,000
$1,315,433
$1,000,000
$13,154,327
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2011
Between 1929 and 2011, food rose the most, up 1280.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 394.4%, against 1215.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.19%
$1,315
Food
3.25%
$1,381
Apparel
1.97%
$494
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 2011
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 1929–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,275
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,315
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $215 by
1969, on its way to $1,315 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,315; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,315 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2011/