$100 in 1931 is worth $176 in 1953,
because prices increased 75.7% over that period, an average of
2.59% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$176
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
75.7%
Average inflation rate
2.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$176
Price difference ($100 base)
$75.66
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1931 → 1953
$176
$100 in 1953 → 1931
$56.93
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1953
Between 1931 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 75.7%, which works out to an average of
2.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1953: the 1931 dollar
lost 43.1% of its purchasing power over
these 22 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 1953 at the same ratio, 1.76: $1,000 becomes
$1,757, and $10,000 becomes $17,566.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.76
$5.00
$8.78
$10.00
$17.57
$20.00
$35.13
$50.00
$87.83
$100
$176
$500
$878
$1,000
$1,757
$5,000
$8,783
$10,000
$17,566
$100,000
$175,658
$1,000,000
$1,756,579
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1953
Between 1931 and 1953, food rose the most, up 119.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 95.9%, against 75.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.59%
$176
Food
3.64%
$219
Apparel
3.10%
$196
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 1953
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 1931–1953 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
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$176
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $107 by
1942, on its way to $176 in 1953; 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 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $176; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1953: $100 is worth $176 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1953/