$100 in 1930 is worth $622 in 1984,
because prices increased 522.2% over that period, an average of
3.44% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$622
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
522.2%
Average inflation rate
3.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$622
Price difference ($100 base)
$522
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1930 → 1984
$622
$100 in 1984 → 1930
$16.07
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1984
Between 1930 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 522.2%, which works out to an average of
3.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1984: the 1930 dollar
lost 83.9% of its purchasing power over
these 54 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 1984 at the same ratio, 6.22: $1,000 becomes
$6,222, and $10,000 becomes $62,216.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1984
$1.00
$6.22
$5.00
$31.11
$10.00
$62.22
$20.00
$124
$50.00
$311
$100
$622
$500
$3,111
$1,000
$6,222
$5,000
$31,108
$10,000
$62,216
$100,000
$622,156
$1,000,000
$6,221,557
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1984
Between 1930 and 1984, food rose the most, up 561.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 321.9%, against 522.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.44%
$622
Food
3.56%
$662
Apparel
2.70%
$422
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 1984
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 1930–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$622
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $163 by
1956, on its way to $622 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $622; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1984: $100 is worth $622 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1984/