$100 in 1929 is worth $1,883 in 2025,
because prices increased 1782.7% over that period, an average of
3.10% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$1,883
in 2025
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1782.7%
Average inflation rate
3.10% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,883
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,783
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 2025
321.943
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 2025
2.63%
$100 in 1929 → 2025
$1,883
$100 in 2025 → 1929
$5.31
What happened to prices between 1929 and 2025
Between 1929 and 2025, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 321.943.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1782.7%, which works out to an average of
3.10% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2025: the 1929 dollar
lost 94.7% of its purchasing power over
these 96 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 2025 at the same ratio, 18.83: $1,000 becomes
$18,827, and $10,000 becomes $188,271.
Amount in 1929
Value in 2025
$1.00
$18.83
$5.00
$94.14
$10.00
$188
$20.00
$377
$50.00
$941
$100
$1,883
$500
$9,414
$1,000
$18,827
$5,000
$94,135
$10,000
$188,271
$100,000
$1,882,708
$1,000,000
$18,827,076
Inflation by spending category, 1929–2025
Between 1929 and 2025, food rose the most, up 1957.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 431.6%, against 1782.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 2025, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.10%
$1,883
Food
3.20%
$2,058
Apparel
1.76%
$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 2025
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 1929–2025 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
2020–2025
4.46%
24.4%
$1,883
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $425 by
1979, on its way to $1,883 in 2025; 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: 2025
In 2025, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1929 had the buying
power of $1,883; the year's average CPI of 321.943 is the level
behind every 2025 figure on this page.
2025 was a year of trade policy and data disruptions rather than an
inflation surge. Consumer prices rose 2.6% on average, a step down from
2024’s 2.9% and well below the 8.0% of 2022. Tariffs announced in April
pushed up prices for some imported goods, including furniture, apparel, and
auto parts, but the effect on the overall index was smaller than many
forecasters feared at the start of the year, in part because retailers
absorbed some of the cost and demand for services stayed steady.
The Federal Reserve held its policy rate steady through the first half of the
year, then began cutting again in September, lowering it in three quarter-point
steps to 3.50–3.75% by December.
The federal government shutdown that began October 1 lasted 43 days, and the
Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish a CPI for October 2025 because the
survey data could not be collected. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 78 cents in July.
MLA: “Inflation from 1929 to 2025: $100 is worth $1,883 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2025/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 2025. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-2025/