$100 in 1930 is worth $168 in 1957,
because prices increased 68.3% over that period, an average of
1.95% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$168
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
68.3%
Average inflation rate
1.95% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$168
Price difference ($100 base)
$68.26
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1930 → 1957
$168
$100 in 1957 → 1930
$59.43
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1957
Between 1930 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 68.3%, which works out to an average of
1.95% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1957: the 1930 dollar
lost 40.6% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 1957 at the same ratio, 1.68: $1,000 becomes
$1,683, and $10,000 becomes $16,826.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.68
$5.00
$8.41
$10.00
$16.83
$20.00
$33.65
$50.00
$84.13
$100
$168
$500
$841
$1,000
$1,683
$5,000
$8,413
$10,000
$16,826
$100,000
$168,263
$1,000,000
$1,682,635
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1957
Between 1930 and 1957, food rose the most, up 85.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 83.9%, against 68.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.95%
$168
Food
2.31%
$185
Apparel
2.28%
$184
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 1957
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1930–1957 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1930, at end
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$83.83
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$144
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$168
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $104 by
1943, on its way to $168 in 1957; 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.
In 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $168; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1957: $100 is worth $168 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1957/