$100 in 1930 is worth $117 in 1946,
because prices increased 16.8% over that period, an average of
0.97% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$117
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
16.8%
Average inflation rate
0.97% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$117
Price difference ($100 base)
$16.77
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1930 → 1946
$117
$100 in 1946 → 1930
$85.64
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1946
Between 1930 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 16.8%, which works out to an average of
0.97% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.86 buys in 1946: the 1930 dollar
lost 14.4% of its purchasing power over
these 16 years.
Consumer prices fell 2.3% in 1930, a mild decline compared with what was
coming but the first sign that the summer 1929 downturn was not going to be
short. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that contraction from
August 1929, and by the time it finally bottomed out in March 1933 it would
run 43 months, the longest of any downturn in the NBER’s chronology back to
1854. Congress made the trade picture worse in June, when President Hoover
signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on more than 20,000
imported goods to some of the highest levels in a century. Trading partners
retaliated with tariffs of their own, and global trade volumes collapsed
over the next several years, deepening a downturn economists still debate
how much the tariff itself worsened. The financial system cracked that fall:
a regional banking panic culminated in the December 11 failure of the Bank
of United States in New York, at the time the largest bank failure in
American history, wiping out more than $200 million in deposits. It was the
first of four banking panics that would hit the country before 1933 was
out. Consumer prices still stood 68.7% above their 1913
starting point, but the direction had clearly turned. First-class postage
held at 2 cents, unchanged for eleven straight years.
Every 1930 amount converts to 1946 at the same ratio, 1.17: $1,000 becomes
$1,168, and $10,000 becomes $11,677.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.17
$5.00
$5.84
$10.00
$11.68
$20.00
$23.35
$50.00
$58.38
$100
$117
$500
$584
$1,000
$1,168
$5,000
$5,838
$10,000
$11,677
$100,000
$116,766
$1,000,000
$1,167,665
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1946
Between 1930 and 1946, apparel rose the most, up 42.1%, while food rose the least, up 26.9%, against 16.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.97%
$117
Apparel
2.22%
$142
Food
1.50%
$127
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1930: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1930 to 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.68% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1930–1946 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1930, at end
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$83.83
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$117
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $84.43 by
1938, on its way to $117 in 1946; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $117; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1946: $100 is worth $117 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1946/