$100 in 1930 is worth $189 in 1965,
because prices increased 88.6% over that period, an average of
1.83% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$189
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
88.6%
Average inflation rate
1.83% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$189
Price difference ($100 base)
$88.62
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1930 → 1965
$189
$100 in 1965 → 1930
$53.02
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1965
Between 1930 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 88.6%, which works out to an average of
1.83% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1965: the 1930 dollar
lost 47.0% of its purchasing power over
these 35 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.89: $1,000 becomes
$1,886, and $10,000 becomes $18,862.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.89
$5.00
$9.43
$10.00
$18.86
$20.00
$37.72
$50.00
$94.31
$100
$189
$500
$943
$1,000
$1,886
$5,000
$9,431
$10,000
$18,862
$100,000
$188,623
$1,000,000
$1,886,228
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1965
Between 1930 and 1965, food rose the most, up 106.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 97.5%, against 88.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.83%
$189
Food
2.09%
$206
Apparel
1.96%
$198
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 1965
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 1930–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$189
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $144 by
1948, on its way to $189 in 1965; 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: 1965
In 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $189; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1965: $100 is worth $189 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1965/