$100 in 1930 is worth $390 in 1978,
because prices increased 290.4% over that period, an average of
2.88% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$390
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
290.4%
Average inflation rate
2.88% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$390
Price difference ($100 base)
$290
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1930 → 1978
$390
$100 in 1978 → 1930
$25.61
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1978
Between 1930 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 290.4%, which works out to an average of
2.88% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.26 buys in 1978: the 1930 dollar
lost 74.4% of its purchasing power over
these 48 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 1978 at the same ratio, 3.90: $1,000 becomes
$3,904, and $10,000 becomes $39,042.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1978
$1.00
$3.90
$5.00
$19.52
$10.00
$39.04
$20.00
$78.08
$50.00
$195
$100
$390
$500
$1,952
$1,000
$3,904
$5,000
$19,521
$10,000
$39,042
$100,000
$390,419
$1,000,000
$3,904,192
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1978
Between 1930 and 1978, food rose the most, up 361.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 236.4%, against 290.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.88%
$390
Food
3.24%
$462
Apparel
2.56%
$336
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1930–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$390
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $161 by
1954, on its way to $390 in 1978; 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: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $390; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1978: $100 is worth $390 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1978/