$100 in 1930 is worth $250 in 1972,
because prices increased 150.3% over that period, an average of
2.21% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$250
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
150.3%
Average inflation rate
2.21% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$250
Price difference ($100 base)
$150
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1930 → 1972
$250
$100 in 1972 → 1930
$39.95
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1972
Between 1930 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 150.3%, which works out to an average of
2.21% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.40 buys in 1972: the 1930 dollar
lost 60.0% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 1972 at the same ratio, 2.50: $1,000 becomes
$2,503, and $10,000 becomes $25,030.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1972
$1.00
$2.50
$5.00
$12.51
$10.00
$25.03
$20.00
$50.06
$50.00
$125
$100
$250
$500
$1,251
$1,000
$2,503
$5,000
$12,515
$10,000
$25,030
$100,000
$250,299
$1,000,000
$2,502,994
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1972
Between 1930 and 1972, food rose the most, up 169.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 157.4%, against 150.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.21%
$250
Food
2.39%
$270
Apparel
2.28%
$257
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 1972
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 1930–1972 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$232
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$250
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $144 by
1950, on its way to $250 in 1972; 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: 1972
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $250; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1972: $100 is worth $250 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1972/