$100 in 1931 is worth $159 in 1950,
because prices increased 58.6% over that period, an average of
2.46% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$159
in 1950
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
58.6%
Average inflation rate
2.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$159
Price difference ($100 base)
$58.55
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1950
24.1
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1950
1.26%
$100 in 1931 → 1950
$159
$100 in 1950 → 1931
$63.07
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1950
Between 1931 and 1950, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 24.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 58.6%, which works out to an average of
2.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.63 buys in 1950: the 1931 dollar
lost 36.9% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1950 at the same ratio, 1.59: $1,000 becomes
$1,586, and $10,000 becomes $15,855.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1950
$1.00
$1.59
$5.00
$7.93
$10.00
$15.86
$20.00
$31.71
$50.00
$79.28
$100
$159
$500
$793
$1,000
$1,586
$5,000
$7,928
$10,000
$15,855
$100,000
$158,553
$1,000,000
$1,585,526
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1950
Between 1931 and 1950, food rose the most, up 96.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 83.2%, against 58.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1950, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.46%
$159
Food
3.63%
$197
Apparel
3.24%
$183
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 1950
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1950 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$159
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $92.11 by
1940, on its way to $159 in 1950; 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.
In 1950, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $159; the year's average CPI of 24.1 is the level
behind every 1950 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1950, up from 1949’s 1.2%
decline, a mild gain that hid a sharp turn partway through the year. The
cost of living had been roughly flat through the spring, then jumped after
North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, setting off a wave of hoarding
and defense buying reminiscent of World War II shortages. The United
States entered the war within days under a United Nations mandate;
American and South Korean forces were pushed back to the Pusan Perimeter
that summer before a landing at Inchon that September reversed the front,
and China’s entry into the war that November turned it into a longer
stalemate. Congress moved to put the economy on a war footing that
September, passing the Defense Production Act, which gave the president
authority to direct industrial output toward the military and, if prices
kept climbing, to impose formal wage and price controls. Domestic policy
also expanded that year: the Social Security Amendments of 1950, signed
August 28, raised benefits across the board and extended coverage to
roughly 10 million more workers, the program’s first major expansion since
it began in 1935. Consumer prices finished 1950 143.4% above their
1913 level, matching 1948’s postwar high
after 1949’s brief decline. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at 75 cents an hour after January’s increase.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1950: $100 is worth $159 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1950/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1950. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1950/