$100 in 1931 is worth $266 in 1971,
because prices increased 166.4% over that period, an average of
2.48% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$266
in 1971
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
166.4%
Average inflation rate
2.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$266
Price difference ($100 base)
$166
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1971
40.5
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
$100 in 1931 → 1971
$266
$100 in 1971 → 1931
$37.53
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1971
Between 1931 and 1971, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 40.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 166.4%, which works out to an average of
2.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.38 buys in 1971: the 1931 dollar
lost 62.5% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 1971 at the same ratio, 2.66: $1,000 becomes
$2,664, and $10,000 becomes $26,645.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1971
$1.00
$2.66
$5.00
$13.32
$10.00
$26.64
$20.00
$53.29
$50.00
$133
$100
$266
$500
$1,332
$1,000
$2,664
$5,000
$13,322
$10,000
$26,645
$100,000
$266,447
$1,000,000
$2,664,474
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1971
Between 1931 and 1971, food rose the most, up 213.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 177.7%, against 166.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1971, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.48%
$266
Food
2.90%
$313
Apparel
2.59%
$278
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 1971
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 1931–1971 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$255
1970–1971
4.38%
4.4%
$266
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $171 by
1951, on its way to $266 in 1971; 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: 1971
In 1971, prices rose 4.4% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $266; the year's average CPI of 40.5 is the level
behind every 1971 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.4% in 1971, down from 1970’s 5.7% as
the recession that started in December 1969 finally cooled demand. The bigger
economic story came that August 15, when President Nixon closed the “gold
window” that let foreign governments exchange dollars for gold, ending the
Bretton Woods system that had anchored the dollar since World War II. The
same address announced a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, the first
peacetime controls the country had seen, an attempt to break inflationary
expectations without the slower grind of tighter money. The “Nixon Shock,” as
it came to be known, let the dollar float against other currencies for the
first time and set the stage for a wage-and-price-control regime that would
run in various forms into 1973. Politically, the country lowered its voting
age that year: the 26th Amendment, ratified July 1, extended the vote to
18-year-olds, capping a campaign built on the argument that men old enough to
be drafted to Vietnam were old enough to vote for the people who sent them.
The Postal Service, independent since 1970’s reorganization, raised
first-class postage from 6 to 8 cents that May. A median household earned
$9,028 in 1971, up from $8,734 the year before, while gas held near 36 cents
a gallon and a new home sold for a median $25,200. Consumer prices stood
309.1% above their 1913 level by year’s end, still years away
from the double-digit inflation the controls were meant to prevent.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1971: $100 is worth $266 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1971/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1971. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1971/