$100 in 1930 is worth $1,285 in 2009,
because prices increased 1184.7% over that period, an average of
3.28% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$1,285
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1184.7%
Average inflation rate
3.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,285
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,185
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1930 → 2009
$1,285
$100 in 2009 → 1930
$7.78
What happened to prices between 1930 and 2009
Between 1930 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1184.7%, which works out to an average of
3.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2009: the 1930 dollar
lost 92.2% of its purchasing power over
these 79 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 2009 at the same ratio, 12.85: $1,000 becomes
$12,847, and $10,000 becomes $128,465.
Amount in 1930
Value in 2009
$1.00
$12.85
$5.00
$64.23
$10.00
$128
$20.00
$257
$50.00
$642
$100
$1,285
$500
$6,423
$1,000
$12,847
$5,000
$64,233
$10,000
$128,465
$100,000
$1,284,653
$1,000,000
$12,846,527
Inflation by spending category, 1930–2009
Between 1930 and 2009, food rose the most, up 1297.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 396.2%, against 1184.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.28%
$1,285
Food
3.39%
$1,397
Apparel
2.05%
$496
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 2009
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 1930–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,285
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $232 by
1970, on its way to $1,285 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $1,285; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,285 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2009/