$100 in 1930 is worth $1,623 in 2021,
because prices increased 1522.6% over that period, an average of
3.11% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$1,623
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1522.6%
Average inflation rate
3.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,623
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,523
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1930 → 2021
$1,623
$100 in 2021 → 1930
$6.16
What happened to prices between 1930 and 2021
Between 1930 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1522.6%, which works out to an average of
3.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2021: the 1930 dollar
lost 93.8% of its purchasing power over
these 91 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 2021 at the same ratio, 16.23: $1,000 becomes
$16,226, and $10,000 becomes $162,257.
Amount in 1930
Value in 2021
$1.00
$16.23
$5.00
$81.13
$10.00
$162
$20.00
$325
$50.00
$811
$100
$1,623
$500
$8,113
$1,000
$16,226
$5,000
$81,129
$10,000
$162,257
$100,000
$1,622,575
$1,000,000
$16,225,749
Inflation by spending category, 1930–2021
Between 1930 and 2021, food rose the most, up 1680.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 400.0%, against 1522.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.11%
$1,623
Food
3.21%
$1,780
Apparel
1.78%
$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 2021
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 1930–2021 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,550
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,623
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $322 by
1975, on its way to $1,623 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $1,623; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,623 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-2021/