$100 in 1929 is worth $1,468 in 2018,
because prices increased 1368.5% over that period, an average of
3.06% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,468
in 2018
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1368.5%
Average inflation rate
3.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,468
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,368
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2018
251.107
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2018
2.44%
$100 in 1929 → 2018
$1,468
$100 in 2018 → 1929
$6.81
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2018
Between 1929 and 2018, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 251.107.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1368.5%, which works out to an average of
3.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2018: the 1929 dollar
lost 93.2% of its purchasing power over
these 89 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 2018 at the same ratio, 14.68: $1,000 becomes
$14,685, and $10,000 becomes $146,846.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2018
$1.00
$14.68
$5.00
$73.42
$10.00
$147
$20.00
$294
$50.00
$734
$100
$1,468
$500
$7,342
$1,000
$14,685
$5,000
$73,423
$10,000
$146,846
$100,000
$1,468,462
$1,000,000
$14,684,620
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2018
Between 1929 and 2018, food rose the most, up 1436.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 408.7%, against 1368.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2018, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.06%
$1,468
Food
3.12%
$1,537
Apparel
1.84%
$509
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 2018
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 1929–2018 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
2010–2018
1.78%
15.2%
$1,468
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $288 by
1974, on its way to $1,468 in 2018; 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: 2018
In 2018, prices rose 2.4% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,468; the year's average CPI of 251.107 is the level
behind every 2018 figure on this page.
2018 was the peak of the late-2010s expansion. Consumer prices rose 2.4%,
the fastest since 2011, with gasoline averaging $2.72 a gallon after a summer
high. Unemployment fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969, and median
household income reached $63,179. The median new home sold for about $331,800,
and a first-class stamp cost 50 cents. The federal minimum wage was still $7.25.
Trade policy became a price factor for the first time in decades. New tariffs
on steel, aluminum, and a growing list of Chinese goods raised costs for
manufacturers and some consumer products, and retaliation cut into exports of
soybeans and other farm goods.
The Federal Reserve, led from February by Jerome Powell, raised rates four
times to 2.25–2.50%. A stock-market drop of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter
led the Fed to signal a pause in early 2019. Oil fell from over $75 a barrel in
October to below $50 by December, which pulled headline inflation lower going
into the next year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2018: $100 is worth $1,468 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2018/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2018. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2018/