$100 in 1929 is worth $1,711 in 2022,
because prices increased 1611.4% over that period, an average of
3.10% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,711
in 2022
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1611.4%
Average inflation rate
3.10% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,711
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,611
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2022
292.655
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2022
8.00%
$100 in 1929 → 2022
$1,711
$100 in 2022 → 1929
$5.84
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2022
Between 1929 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1611.4%, which works out to an average of
3.10% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2022: the 1929 dollar
lost 94.2% of its purchasing power over
these 93 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 2022 at the same ratio, 17.11: $1,000 becomes
$17,114, and $10,000 becomes $171,143.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2022
$1.00
$17.11
$5.00
$85.57
$10.00
$171
$20.00
$342
$50.00
$856
$100
$1,711
$500
$8,557
$1,000
$17,114
$5,000
$85,572
$10,000
$171,143
$100,000
$1,711,433
$1,000,000
$17,114,327
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2022
Between 1929 and 2022, food rose the most, up 1750.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 414.5%, against 1611.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.10%
$1,711
Food
3.19%
$1,851
Apparel
1.78%
$514
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 2022
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 1929–2022 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,514
2020–2022
6.34%
13.1%
$1,711
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $288 by
1974, on its way to $1,711 in 2022; 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: 2022
In 2022, prices rose 8.0% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,711; the year's average CPI of 292.655 is the level
behind every 2022 figure on this page.
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2022: $100 is worth $1,711 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2022/