$100 in 1930 is worth $1,347 in 2011,
because prices increased 1246.9% over that period, an average of
3.26% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$1,347
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1246.9%
Average inflation rate
3.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,347
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,247
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1930 → 2011
$1,347
$100 in 2011 → 1930
$7.42
What happened to prices between 1930 and 2011
Between 1930 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1246.9%, which works out to an average of
3.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2011: the 1930 dollar
lost 92.6% of its purchasing power over
these 81 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 2011 at the same ratio, 13.47: $1,000 becomes
$13,469, and $10,000 becomes $134,694.
Amount in 1930
Value in 2011
$1.00
$13.47
$5.00
$67.35
$10.00
$135
$20.00
$269
$50.00
$673
$100
$1,347
$500
$6,735
$1,000
$13,469
$5,000
$67,347
$10,000
$134,694
$100,000
$1,346,940
$1,000,000
$13,469,401
Inflation by spending category, 1930–2011
Between 1930 and 2011, food rose the most, up 1360.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 404.6%, against 1246.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.26%
$1,347
Food
3.37%
$1,461
Apparel
2.02%
$505
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 2011
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 1930–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,306
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,347
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $232 by
1970, on its way to $1,347 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $1,347; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,347 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2011/