$100 in 1931 is worth $96.71 in 1941,
because prices declined 3.3% over that period, an average of
0.33% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$96.71
in 1941
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-3.3%
Average inflation rate
-0.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$96.71
Price difference ($100 base)
-$3.29
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1941
14.7
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
$100 in 1931 → 1941
$96.71
$100 in 1941 → 1931
$103
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1941
Between 1931 and 1941, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 14.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 3.3%, which works out to an average of
-0.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$1.03 buys in 1941: the 1931 dollar
gained 3.4% in purchasing power over
these 10 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
Every 1931 amount converts to 1941 at the same ratio, 0.97: $1,000 becomes
$967, and $10,000 becomes $9,671.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1941
$1.00
$0.97
$5.00
$4.84
$10.00
$9.67
$20.00
$19.34
$50.00
$48.36
$100
$96.71
$500
$484
$1,000
$967
$5,000
$4,836
$10,000
$9,671
$100,000
$96,711
$1,000,000
$967,105
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1941
Between 1931 and 1941, apparel rose the most, up 3.6%, while food rose the least, up 1.6%, against 3.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1941, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.33%
$96.71
Apparel
0.36%
$104
Food
0.15%
$102
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1931: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1931 to 1941
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.00% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1941 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1941
5.00%
5.0%
$96.71
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $91.45 by
1936, on its way to $96.71 in 1941; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.0% in 1941, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1941, prices rose 5.0% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $96.71; the year's average CPI of 14.7 is the level
behind every 1941 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1941: $100 is worth $96.71 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1941/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1941. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1941/