$100 in 1931 is worth $207 in 1965,
because prices increased 107.2% over that period, an average of
2.17% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$207
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
107.2%
Average inflation rate
2.17% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$207
Price difference ($100 base)
$107
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1931 → 1965
$207
$100 in 1965 → 1931
$48.25
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1965
Between 1931 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 107.2%, which works out to an average of
2.17% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1965: the 1931 dollar
lost 51.7% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1965 at the same ratio, 2.07: $1,000 becomes
$2,072, and $10,000 becomes $20,724.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1965
$1.00
$2.07
$5.00
$10.36
$10.00
$20.72
$20.00
$41.45
$50.00
$104
$100
$207
$500
$1,036
$1,000
$2,072
$5,000
$10,362
$10,000
$20,724
$100,000
$207,237
$1,000,000
$2,072,368
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1965
Between 1931 and 1965, food rose the most, up 149.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 117.3%, against 107.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.17%
$207
Food
2.73%
$250
Apparel
2.31%
$217
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 1965
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 1931–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$207
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $147 by
1947, on its way to $207 in 1965; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1965
In 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $207; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1965: $100 is worth $207 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1965/