$100 in 1930 is worth $1,031 in 2000,
because prices increased 931.1% over that period, an average of
3.39% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$1,031
in 2000
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
931.1%
Average inflation rate
3.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,031
Price difference ($100 base)
$931
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 2000
172.2
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 2000
3.36%
$100 in 1930 → 2000
$1,031
$100 in 2000 → 1930
$9.70
What happened to prices between 1930 and 2000
Between 1930 and 2000, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 172.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 931.1%, which works out to an average of
3.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2000: the 1930 dollar
lost 90.3% of its purchasing power over
these 70 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 2000 at the same ratio, 10.31: $1,000 becomes
$10,311, and $10,000 becomes $103,114.
Amount in 1930
Value in 2000
$1.00
$10.31
$5.00
$51.56
$10.00
$103
$20.00
$206
$50.00
$516
$100
$1,031
$500
$5,156
$1,000
$10,311
$5,000
$51,557
$10,000
$103,114
$100,000
$1,031,138
$1,000,000
$10,311,377
Inflation by spending category, 1930–2000
Between 1930 and 2000, food rose the most, up 975.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 435.5%, against 931.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 2000, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.39%
$1,031
Food
3.45%
$1,076
Apparel
2.43%
$536
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 2000
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 1930–2000 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,031
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $189 by
1965, on its way to $1,031 in 2000; 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: 2000
In 2000, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $1,031; the year's average CPI of 172.2 is the level
behind every 2000 figure on this page.
Inflation ran at 3.4% in 2000, the highest annual rate since 1991, as an economy growing
above 4% and a rise in oil prices pushed the CPI up. The median household earned about
$42,100, gas averaged $1.51 a gallon, and a new home cost roughly $169,000. The Federal
Reserve had raised interest rates six times since mid-1999 and stopped at 6.5% in May. By
then the stock market had already turned: the Nasdaq hit its record of 5,048 on March 10 and
lost about 39% of its value by December. Consumer prices did not reflect the slowdown yet,
which is why the Fed held rates high through the year even as technology companies began to
fail. In October, Congress granted China permanent normal trade relations, a decision that
would help hold down the price of manufactured goods for years. A first-class stamp cost 33
cents and the federal minimum wage was $5.15. The recession of 2001 brought inflation back
down.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 2000: $100 is worth $1,031 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2000/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 2000. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2000/