$100 in 1931 is worth $429 in 1978,
because prices increased 328.9% over that period, an average of
3.15% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$429
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
328.9%
Average inflation rate
3.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$429
Price difference ($100 base)
$329
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1931 → 1978
$429
$100 in 1978 → 1931
$23.31
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1978
Between 1931 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 328.9%, which works out to an average of
3.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.23 buys in 1978: the 1931 dollar
lost 76.7% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 1978 at the same ratio, 4.29: $1,000 becomes
$4,289, and $10,000 becomes $42,895.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1978
$1.00
$4.29
$5.00
$21.45
$10.00
$42.89
$20.00
$85.79
$50.00
$214
$100
$429
$500
$2,145
$1,000
$4,289
$5,000
$21,447
$10,000
$42,895
$100,000
$428,947
$1,000,000
$4,289,474
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1978
Between 1931 and 1978, food rose the most, up 458.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 270.0%, against 328.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.15%
$429
Food
3.73%
$558
Apparel
2.82%
$370
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$429
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $176 by
1955, on its way to $429 in 1978; 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: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $429; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1978: $100 is worth $429 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1978/