$100 in 1931 is worth $197 in 1961,
because prices increased 96.7% over that period, an average of
2.28% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$197
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
96.7%
Average inflation rate
2.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$197
Price difference ($100 base)
$96.71
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1931 → 1961
$197
$100 in 1961 → 1931
$50.84
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1961
Between 1931 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 96.7%, which works out to an average of
2.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.51 buys in 1961: the 1931 dollar
lost 49.2% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 1961 at the same ratio, 1.97: $1,000 becomes
$1,967, and $10,000 becomes $19,671.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.97
$5.00
$9.84
$10.00
$19.67
$20.00
$39.34
$50.00
$98.36
$100
$197
$500
$984
$1,000
$1,967
$5,000
$9,836
$10,000
$19,671
$100,000
$196,711
$1,000,000
$1,967,105
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1961
Between 1931 and 1961, food rose the most, up 135.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 109.5%, against 96.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.28%
$197
Food
2.90%
$236
Apparel
2.50%
$210
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 1961
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 1931–1961 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
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$195
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$197
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $128 by
1946, on its way to $197 in 1961; 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 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $197; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1961: $100 is worth $197 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1961/