$100 in 1931 is worth $185 in 1957,
because prices increased 84.9% over that period, an average of
2.39% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$185
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
84.9%
Average inflation rate
2.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$185
Price difference ($100 base)
$84.87
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1931 → 1957
$185
$100 in 1957 → 1931
$54.09
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1957
Between 1931 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 84.9%, which works out to an average of
2.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.54 buys in 1957: the 1931 dollar
lost 45.9% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1957 at the same ratio, 1.85: $1,000 becomes
$1,849, and $10,000 becomes $18,487.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.85
$5.00
$9.24
$10.00
$18.49
$20.00
$36.97
$50.00
$92.43
$100
$185
$500
$924
$1,000
$1,849
$5,000
$9,243
$10,000
$18,487
$100,000
$184,868
$1,000,000
$1,848,684
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1957
Between 1931 and 1957, food rose the most, up 124.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 102.3%, against 84.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.39%
$185
Food
3.15%
$224
Apparel
2.75%
$202
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 1957
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 1931–1957 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
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$185
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $116 by
1944, on its way to $185 in 1957; 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 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $185; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1957: $100 is worth $185 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1957/