$100 in 1931 is worth $275 in 1972,
because prices increased 175.0% over that period, an average of
2.50% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$275
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
175.0%
Average inflation rate
2.50% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$275
Price difference ($100 base)
$175
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1931 → 1972
$275
$100 in 1972 → 1931
$36.36
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1972
Between 1931 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 175.0%, which works out to an average of
2.50% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.36 buys in 1972: the 1931 dollar
lost 63.6% of its purchasing power over
these 41 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 1972 at the same ratio, 2.75: $1,000 becomes
$2,750, and $10,000 becomes $27,500.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1972
$1.00
$2.75
$5.00
$13.75
$10.00
$27.50
$20.00
$55.00
$50.00
$138
$100
$275
$500
$1,375
$1,000
$2,750
$5,000
$13,750
$10,000
$27,500
$100,000
$275,000
$1,000,000
$2,750,000
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1972
Between 1931 and 1972, food rose the most, up 226.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 183.2%, against 175.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.50%
$275
Food
2.93%
$326
Apparel
2.57%
$283
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 1972
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 1931–1972 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
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$275
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $171 by
1951, on its way to $275 in 1972; 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: 1972
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $275; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1972: $100 is worth $275 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1972/