$100 in 1930 is worth $887 in 1994,
because prices increased 787.4% over that period, an average of
3.47% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$887
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
787.4%
Average inflation rate
3.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$887
Price difference ($100 base)
$787
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1930 → 1994
$887
$100 in 1994 → 1930
$11.27
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1994
Between 1930 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 787.4%, which works out to an average of
3.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1994: the 1930 dollar
lost 88.7% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 1994 at the same ratio, 8.87: $1,000 becomes
$8,874, and $10,000 becomes $88,743.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1994
$1.00
$8.87
$5.00
$44.37
$10.00
$88.74
$20.00
$177
$50.00
$444
$100
$887
$500
$4,437
$1,000
$8,874
$5,000
$44,371
$10,000
$88,743
$100,000
$887,425
$1,000,000
$8,874,251
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1994
Between 1930 and 1994, food rose the most, up 825.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 451.2%, against 787.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.47%
$887
Food
3.54%
$925
Apparel
2.70%
$551
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 1994
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 1930–1994 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
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$887
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $177 by
1960, on its way to $887 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $887; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1994: $100 is worth $887 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1994/