$100 in 1929 is worth $1,782 in 2023,
because prices increased 1681.9% over that period, an average of
3.11% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,782
in 2023
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1681.9%
Average inflation rate
3.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,782
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,682
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2023
304.702
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2023
4.12%
$100 in 1929 → 2023
$1,782
$100 in 2023 → 1929
$5.61
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2023
Between 1929 and 2023, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 304.702.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1681.9%, which works out to an average of
3.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2023: the 1929 dollar
lost 94.4% of its purchasing power over
these 94 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 2023 at the same ratio, 17.82: $1,000 becomes
$17,819, and $10,000 becomes $178,188.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2023
$1.00
$17.82
$5.00
$89.09
$10.00
$178
$20.00
$356
$50.00
$891
$100
$1,782
$500
$8,909
$1,000
$17,819
$5,000
$89,094
$10,000
$178,188
$100,000
$1,781,883
$1,000,000
$17,818,830
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2023
Between 1929 and 2023, food rose the most, up 1857.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 428.7%, against 1681.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2023, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.11%
$1,782
Food
3.21%
$1,957
Apparel
1.79%
$529
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 2023
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 1929–2023 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
2020–2023
5.59%
17.7%
$1,782
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $288 by
1974, on its way to $1,782 in 2023; 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: 2023
In 2023, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,782; the year's average CPI of 304.702 is the level
behind every 2023 figure on this page.
2023 was the year inflation came down without a recession. Consumer prices
rose 4.1% on average, roughly half of 2022’s 8.0%, and the December-to-December
rate fell to 3.4%. Gasoline averaged $3.52 a gallon, well below the 2022
average, and supply-chain pressure on goods eased. Shelter, restaurant meals,
and other services stayed expensive, so the CPI kept rising at a rate well
above the pre-pandemic pace.
The Federal Reserve completed its rate-hiking campaign in July, taking the
policy rate to 5.25–5.50%, the highest level in 22 years. The effects showed
up in banking: Silicon Valley Bank failed in March after rate increases eroded
the value of its bond portfolio, the second-largest bank failure in U.S.
history at the time. Despite that, unemployment stayed under 4% all year.
Median household income was $80,610 according to the Census Bureau. The
federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp rose to 66 cents
in July.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2023: $100 is worth $1,782 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2023/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2023. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2023/