$100 in 1930 is worth $865 in 1993,
because prices increased 765.3% over that period, an average of
3.48% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$865
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
765.3%
Average inflation rate
3.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$865
Price difference ($100 base)
$765
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1930 → 1993
$865
$100 in 1993 → 1930
$11.56
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1993
Between 1930 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 765.3%, which works out to an average of
3.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1993: the 1930 dollar
lost 88.4% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 1993 at the same ratio, 8.65: $1,000 becomes
$8,653, and $10,000 becomes $86,527.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1993
$1.00
$8.65
$5.00
$43.26
$10.00
$86.53
$20.00
$173
$50.00
$433
$100
$865
$500
$4,326
$1,000
$8,653
$5,000
$43,263
$10,000
$86,527
$100,000
$865,269
$1,000,000
$8,652,695
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1993
Between 1930 and 1993, food rose the most, up 803.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 452.5%, against 765.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.48%
$865
Food
3.56%
$903
Apparel
2.75%
$552
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 1993
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 1930–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$783
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$865
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $177 by
1960, on its way to $865 in 1993; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $865; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1993: $100 is worth $865 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1993/