$100 in 1930 is worth $596 in 1983,
because prices increased 496.4% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$596
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
496.4%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$596
Price difference ($100 base)
$496
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1930 → 1983
$596
$100 in 1983 → 1930
$16.77
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1983
Between 1930 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 496.4%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.17 buys in 1983: the 1930 dollar
lost 83.2% of its purchasing power over
these 53 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 1983 at the same ratio, 5.96: $1,000 becomes
$5,964, and $10,000 becomes $59,641.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1983
$1.00
$5.96
$5.00
$29.82
$10.00
$59.64
$20.00
$119
$50.00
$298
$100
$596
$500
$2,982
$1,000
$5,964
$5,000
$29,820
$10,000
$59,641
$100,000
$596,407
$1,000,000
$5,964,072
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1983
Between 1930 and 1983, food rose the most, up 537.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 314.0%, against 496.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$596
Food
3.56%
$637
Apparel
2.72%
$414
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 1983
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 1930–1983 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
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$596
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $163 by
1956, on its way to $596 in 1983; 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: 1983
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $596; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1983: $100 is worth $596 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1983/