$100 in 1931 is worth $190 in 1958,
because prices increased 90.1% over that period, an average of
2.41% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$190
in 1958
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
90.1%
Average inflation rate
2.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$190
Price difference ($100 base)
$90.13
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1958
28.9
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1958
2.85%
$100 in 1931 → 1958
$190
$100 in 1958 → 1931
$52.60
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1958
Between 1931 and 1958, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 28.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 90.1%, which works out to an average of
2.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1958: the 1931 dollar
lost 47.4% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 1958 at the same ratio, 1.90: $1,000 becomes
$1,901, and $10,000 becomes $19,013.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1958
$1.00
$1.90
$5.00
$9.51
$10.00
$19.01
$20.00
$38.03
$50.00
$95.07
$100
$190
$500
$951
$1,000
$1,901
$5,000
$9,507
$10,000
$19,013
$100,000
$190,132
$1,000,000
$1,901,316
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1958
Between 1931 and 1958, food rose the most, up 134.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 102.7%, against 90.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1958, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.41%
$190
Food
3.20%
$234
Apparel
2.65%
$203
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 1958
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 1931–1958 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
1950–1958
2.30%
19.9%
$190
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $116 by
1944, on its way to $190 in 1958; 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 1958, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $190; the year's average CPI of 28.9 is the level
behind every 1958 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.8% in 1958, down only slightly from
1957’s 3.3% even as the country sank into the sharpest
postwar recession to that point, an early sign that inflation and a
shrinking economy could coexist rather than trade off against each other.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the downturn’s trough to
that April, with unemployment peaking near 7.5% that summer, the worst
reading since the 1930s. The Post Office raised first-class postage to 4
cents that August 1, up from 3 cents, the rate’s first change since 1932.
Washington answered the Soviet Union’s technological lead that summer
too: Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29,
establishing NASA, which opened for business that October 1 to compete
with the Soviet space program after the shock of Sputnik the year before.
Consumer prices finished 1958 191.9% above their 1913
level. The minimum wage held at $1.00 an hour, and first-class postage
rose to 4 cents that August, the first increase since 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1958: $100 is worth $190 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1958/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1958. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1958/