$100 in 1930 is worth $940 in 1996,
because prices increased 839.5% over that period, an average of
3.45% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$940
in 1996
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
839.5%
Average inflation rate
3.45% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$940
Price difference ($100 base)
$840
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1996
156.9
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1996
2.95%
$100 in 1930 → 1996
$940
$100 in 1996 → 1930
$10.64
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1996
Between 1930 and 1996, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 156.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 839.5%, which works out to an average of
3.45% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1996: the 1930 dollar
lost 89.4% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 1996 at the same ratio, 9.40: $1,000 becomes
$9,395, and $10,000 becomes $93,952.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1996
$1.00
$9.40
$5.00
$46.98
$10.00
$93.95
$20.00
$188
$50.00
$470
$100
$940
$500
$4,698
$1,000
$9,395
$5,000
$46,976
$10,000
$93,952
$100,000
$939,521
$1,000,000
$9,395,210
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1996
Between 1930 and 1996, food rose the most, up 882.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 444.2%, against 839.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1996, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.45%
$940
Food
3.52%
$983
Apparel
2.60%
$544
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 1996
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 1930–1996 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
1990–1996
3.09%
20.0%
$940
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $189 by
1965, on its way to $940 in 1996; 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: 1996
In 1996, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $940; the year's average CPI of 156.9 is the level
behind every 1996 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $35,500 in 1996, gas averaged $1.23 a gallon, up noticeably
from the mid-decade lull, and a new home cost roughly $140,000. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the
year, ticking back up from 1995 as energy prices firmed. Washington passed two of the decade’s
more consequential laws that year: in February, the Telecommunications Act rewrote the rules for
phone, cable, and broadcast media for the first time since 1934, opening local markets to
competition and easing ownership limits; in August, a welfare overhaul ended the federal
guarantee of cash assistance, replacing it with block grants to states and time limits on
benefits. In October, the federal minimum wage rose to $4.75 an hour, its first increase in five
years and the opening step of a two-part law that would take it to $5.15 the following
September. Two sweeping new laws and a minimum wage finally on the move again made 1996 a year
that changed more about how the economy was governed than about how fast prices moved.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1996: $100 is worth $940 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1996/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1996. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1996/