$100 in 1929 is worth $1,834 in 2024,
because prices increased 1734.4% over that period, an average of
3.11% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,834
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1734.4%
Average inflation rate
3.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,834
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,734
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1929 → 2024
$1,834
$100 in 2024 → 1929
$5.45
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2024
Between 1929 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1734.4%, which works out to an average of
3.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2024: the 1929 dollar
lost 94.5% of its purchasing power over
these 95 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 2024 at the same ratio, 18.34: $1,000 becomes
$18,344, and $10,000 becomes $183,444.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2024
$1.00
$18.34
$5.00
$91.72
$10.00
$183
$20.00
$367
$50.00
$917
$100
$1,834
$500
$9,172
$1,000
$18,344
$5,000
$91,722
$10,000
$183,444
$100,000
$1,834,439
$1,000,000
$18,344,386
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2024
Between 1929 and 2024, food rose the most, up 1901.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 432.3%, against 1734.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.11%
$1,834
Food
3.20%
$2,002
Apparel
1.78%
$532
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 2024
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 1929–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$1,834
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $288 by
1974, on its way to $1,834 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,834; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2024: $100 is worth $1,834 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2024/