$100 in 1930 is worth $493 in 1980,
because prices increased 393.4% over that period, an average of
3.24% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$493
in 1980
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
393.4%
Average inflation rate
3.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$493
Price difference ($100 base)
$393
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1980
82.4
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
$100 in 1930 → 1980
$493
$100 in 1980 → 1930
$20.27
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1980
Between 1930 and 1980, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 82.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 393.4%, which works out to an average of
3.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.20 buys in 1980: the 1930 dollar
lost 79.7% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 1980 at the same ratio, 4.93: $1,000 becomes
$4,934, and $10,000 becomes $49,341.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1980
$1.00
$4.93
$5.00
$24.67
$10.00
$49.34
$20.00
$98.68
$50.00
$247
$100
$493
$500
$2,467
$1,000
$4,934
$5,000
$24,671
$10,000
$49,341
$100,000
$493,413
$1,000,000
$4,934,132
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1980
Between 1930 and 1980, food rose the most, up 456.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 275.6%, against 393.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1980, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.24%
$493
Food
3.49%
$556
Apparel
2.68%
$376
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 1980
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1930–1980 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$493
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $161 by
1954, on its way to $493 in 1980; 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: 1980
In 1980, prices rose 13.5% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $493; the year's average CPI of 82.4 is the level
behind every 1980 figure on this page.
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1980: $100 is worth $493 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1980/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1980. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1980/