$100 in 1930 is worth $578 in 1982,
because prices increased 477.8% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$578
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
477.8%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$578
Price difference ($100 base)
$478
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1930 → 1982
$578
$100 in 1982 → 1930
$17.31
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1982
Between 1930 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 477.8%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.17 buys in 1982: the 1930 dollar
lost 82.7% of its purchasing power over
these 52 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 1982 at the same ratio, 5.78: $1,000 becomes
$5,778, and $10,000 becomes $57,784.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1982
$1.00
$5.78
$5.00
$28.89
$10.00
$57.78
$20.00
$116
$50.00
$289
$100
$578
$500
$2,889
$1,000
$5,778
$5,000
$28,892
$10,000
$57,784
$100,000
$577,844
$1,000,000
$5,778,443
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1982
Between 1930 and 1982, food rose the most, up 524.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 304.1%, against 477.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$578
Food
3.58%
$624
Apparel
2.72%
$404
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1930–1982 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
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$578
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $163 by
1956, on its way to $578 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $578; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1982: $100 is worth $578 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1982/