$100 in 1930 is worth $1,102 in 2003,
because prices increased 1001.8% over that period, an average of
3.34% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$1,102
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1001.8%
Average inflation rate
3.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,102
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,002
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1930 → 2003
$1,102
$100 in 2003 → 1930
$9.08
What happened to prices between 1930 and 2003
Between 1930 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1001.8%, which works out to an average of
3.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2003: the 1930 dollar
lost 90.9% of its purchasing power over
these 73 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 2003 at the same ratio, 11.02: $1,000 becomes
$11,018, and $10,000 becomes $110,180.
Amount in 1930
Value in 2003
$1.00
$11.02
$5.00
$55.09
$10.00
$110
$20.00
$220
$50.00
$551
$100
$1,102
$500
$5,509
$1,000
$11,018
$5,000
$55,090
$10,000
$110,180
$100,000
$1,101,796
$1,000,000
$11,017,964
Inflation by spending category, 1930–2003
Between 1930 and 2003, food rose the most, up 1053.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 399.6%, against 1001.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.34%
$1,102
Food
3.41%
$1,154
Apparel
2.23%
$500
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 2003
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 1930–2003 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
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$1,102
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $189 by
1965, on its way to $1,102 in 2003; 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: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $1,102; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 2003: $100 is worth $1,102 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2003/