$100 in 1930 is worth $743 in 1989,
because prices increased 642.5% over that period, an average of
3.46% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$743
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
642.5%
Average inflation rate
3.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$743
Price difference ($100 base)
$643
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1930 → 1989
$743
$100 in 1989 → 1930
$13.47
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1989
Between 1930 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 642.5%, which works out to an average of
3.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.13 buys in 1989: the 1930 dollar
lost 86.5% of its purchasing power over
these 59 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 1989 at the same ratio, 7.43: $1,000 becomes
$7,425, and $10,000 becomes $74,251.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1989
$1.00
$7.43
$5.00
$37.13
$10.00
$74.25
$20.00
$149
$50.00
$371
$100
$743
$500
$3,713
$1,000
$7,425
$5,000
$37,126
$10,000
$74,251
$100,000
$742,515
$1,000,000
$7,425,150
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1989
Between 1930 and 1989, food rose the most, up 701.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 390.1%, against 642.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.46%
$743
Food
3.59%
$802
Apparel
2.73%
$490
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 1989
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 1930–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$743
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $177 by
1960, on its way to $743 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $743; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1989: $100 is worth $743 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1989/