$100 in 1929 is worth $1,495 in 2019,
because prices increased 1395.1% over that period, an average of
3.05% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,495
in 2019
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1395.1%
Average inflation rate
3.05% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,495
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,395
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2019
255.657
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2019
1.81%
$100 in 1929 → 2019
$1,495
$100 in 2019 → 1929
$6.69
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2019
Between 1929 and 2019, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 255.657.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1395.1%, which works out to an average of
3.05% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2019: the 1929 dollar
lost 93.3% of its purchasing power over
these 90 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 2019 at the same ratio, 14.95: $1,000 becomes
$14,951, and $10,000 becomes $149,507.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2019
$1.00
$14.95
$5.00
$74.75
$10.00
$150
$20.00
$299
$50.00
$748
$100
$1,495
$500
$7,475
$1,000
$14,951
$5,000
$74,754
$10,000
$149,507
$100,000
$1,495,070
$1,000,000
$14,950,702
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2019
Between 1929 and 2019, food rose the most, up 1465.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 402.2%, against 1395.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2019, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.05%
$1,495
Food
3.10%
$1,566
Apparel
1.81%
$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 2019
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 1929–2019 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
2010–2019
1.78%
17.2%
$1,495
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $288 by
1974, on its way to $1,495 in 2019; 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: 2019
In 2019, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,495; the year's average CPI of 255.657 is the level
behind every 2019 figure on this page.
2019 was the last ordinary year before COVID-19. Consumer prices rose 1.8%,
slightly under the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, with gasoline averaging
$2.60 a gallon. Median household income jumped to $68,703, the highest on
record up to that point, and the median new home sold for about $328,000. A
first-class stamp rose to 55 cents.
The Fed reversed course. After four increases in 2018, it cut rates three
times, to 1.50–1.75%, citing slower global growth, trade tensions, and low
inflation. In July the expansion that began in June 2009 became the longest in
U.S. records, and in August the yield curve briefly inverted, a signal
investors read as a recession warning.
For workers at the bottom of the pay scale, 2019 marked a milestone of a
different kind. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and reached its tenth
year without an increase, the longest gap since the wage was first set. Because
prices had climbed about 19% since it was last raised in 2009, its buying power
was lower than at any point in that span.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2019: $100 is worth $1,495 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2019/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2019. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2019/