$100 in 1930 is worth $220 in 1969,
because prices increased 119.8% over that period, an average of
2.04% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$220
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
119.8%
Average inflation rate
2.04% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$220
Price difference ($100 base)
$120
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1930 → 1969
$220
$100 in 1969 → 1930
$45.50
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1969
Between 1930 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 119.8%, which works out to an average of
2.04% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.46 buys in 1969: the 1930 dollar
lost 54.5% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 1969 at the same ratio, 2.20: $1,000 becomes
$2,198, and $10,000 becomes $21,976.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1969
$1.00
$2.20
$5.00
$10.99
$10.00
$21.98
$20.00
$43.95
$50.00
$110
$100
$220
$500
$1,099
$1,000
$2,198
$5,000
$10,988
$10,000
$21,976
$100,000
$219,760
$1,000,000
$2,197,605
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1969
Between 1930 and 1969, food rose the most, up 137.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 134.7%, against 119.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.04%
$220
Food
2.25%
$238
Apparel
2.21%
$235
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 1969
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 1930–1969 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
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$220
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $144 by
1950, on its way to $220 in 1969; 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: 1969
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $220; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1969: $100 is worth $220 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1969/