$100 in 1930 is worth $1,419 in 2015,
because prices increased 1319.3% over that period, an average of
3.17% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$1,419
in 2015
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1319.3%
Average inflation rate
3.17% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,419
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,319
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 2015
237.017
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 2015
0.12%
$100 in 1930 → 2015
$1,419
$100 in 2015 → 1930
$7.05
What happened to prices between 1930 and 2015
Between 1930 and 2015, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 237.017.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1319.3%, which works out to an average of
3.17% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2015: the 1930 dollar
lost 93.0% of its purchasing power over
these 85 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 2015 at the same ratio, 14.19: $1,000 becomes
$14,193, and $10,000 becomes $141,926.
Amount in 1930
Value in 2015
$1.00
$14.19
$5.00
$70.96
$10.00
$142
$20.00
$284
$50.00
$710
$100
$1,419
$500
$7,096
$1,000
$14,193
$5,000
$70,963
$10,000
$141,926
$100,000
$1,419,263
$1,000,000
$14,192,635
Inflation by spending category, 1930–2015
Between 1930 and 2015, food rose the most, up 1484.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 420.3%, against 1319.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 2015, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.17%
$1,419
Food
3.30%
$1,585
Apparel
1.96%
$520
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 2015
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 1930–2015 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
2010–2015
1.68%
8.7%
$1,419
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $232 by
1970, on its way to $1,419 in 2015; 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: 2015
In 2015, prices rose 0.1% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $1,419; the year's average CPI of 237.017 is the level
behind every 2015 figure on this page.
2015 was almost a year with no inflation at all. Consumer prices rose 0.1%,
the smallest increase since the 2009 decline, because energy prices kept
falling. Gasoline averaged $2.45 a gallon, down from $3.37 in 2014, and a
strong dollar made imported goods cheaper. The picture was different outside
food and energy: core prices rose about 1.8% as rents and medical costs
climbed.
Incomes finally showed real progress. Median household income reached $56,516,
a large jump from $53,657, and the median new home sold for about $296,400. The
federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp stayed at 49
cents.
The Federal Reserve chose December to end its zero-rate policy, raising the
target range to 0.25–0.50% for the first time since 2006. It moved even
though headline inflation was far under 2%, arguing that the drag from
energy was temporary. Earlier, a currency shift in China in August had shaken
global markets and pushed oil below $40 a barrel. Prices in 2015 ended
the year barely above their 2014 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 2015: $100 is worth $1,419 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2015/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 2015. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2015/