$100 in 1930 is worth $1,077 in 2002,
because prices increased 977.2% over that period, an average of
3.36% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$1,077
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
977.2%
Average inflation rate
3.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,077
Price difference ($100 base)
$977
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1930 → 2002
$1,077
$100 in 2002 → 1930
$9.28
What happened to prices between 1930 and 2002
Between 1930 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 977.2%, which works out to an average of
3.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2002: the 1930 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 72 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 2002 at the same ratio, 10.77: $1,000 becomes
$10,772, and $10,000 becomes $107,725.
Amount in 1930
Value in 2002
$1.00
$10.77
$5.00
$53.86
$10.00
$108
$20.00
$215
$50.00
$539
$100
$1,077
$500
$5,386
$1,000
$10,772
$5,000
$53,862
$10,000
$107,725
$100,000
$1,077,246
$1,000,000
$10,772,455
Inflation by spending category, 1930–2002
Between 1930 and 2002, food rose the most, up 1029.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 412.4%, against 977.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.36%
$1,077
Food
3.42%
$1,129
Apparel
2.30%
$512
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 2002
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 1930–2002 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
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$1,077
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $189 by
1965, on its way to $1,077 in 2002; 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: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $1,077; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 2002: $100 is worth $1,077 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2002/