$100 in 1930 is worth $179 in 1961,
because prices increased 79.0% over that period, an average of
1.90% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$179
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
79.0%
Average inflation rate
1.90% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$179
Price difference ($100 base)
$79.04
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1930 → 1961
$179
$100 in 1961 → 1930
$55.85
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1961
Between 1930 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 79.0%, which works out to an average of
1.90% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1961: the 1930 dollar
lost 44.1% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 1961 at the same ratio, 1.79: $1,000 becomes
$1,790, and $10,000 becomes $17,904.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.79
$5.00
$8.95
$10.00
$17.90
$20.00
$35.81
$50.00
$89.52
$100
$179
$500
$895
$1,000
$1,790
$5,000
$8,952
$10,000
$17,904
$100,000
$179,042
$1,000,000
$1,790,419
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1961
Between 1930 and 1961, food rose the most, up 94.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 90.5%, against 79.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.90%
$179
Food
2.18%
$195
Apparel
2.10%
$190
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 1961
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 1930–1961 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
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$177
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$179
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $117 by
1946, on its way to $179 in 1961; 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 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1961
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $179; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1961: $100 is worth $179 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1961/