$100 in 1931 is worth $655 in 1983,
because prices increased 555.3% over that period, an average of
3.68% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$655
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
555.3%
Average inflation rate
3.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$655
Price difference ($100 base)
$555
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1931 → 1983
$655
$100 in 1983 → 1931
$15.26
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1983
Between 1931 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 555.3%, which works out to an average of
3.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1983: the 1931 dollar
lost 84.7% of its purchasing power over
these 52 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 1983 at the same ratio, 6.55: $1,000 becomes
$6,553, and $10,000 becomes $65,526.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1983
$1.00
$6.55
$5.00
$32.76
$10.00
$65.53
$20.00
$131
$50.00
$328
$100
$655
$500
$3,276
$1,000
$6,553
$5,000
$32,763
$10,000
$65,526
$100,000
$655,263
$1,000,000
$6,552,632
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1983
Between 1931 and 1983, food rose the most, up 670.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 355.5%, against 555.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.68%
$655
Food
4.00%
$771
Apparel
2.96%
$455
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 1983
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1983 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$542
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$655
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $185 by
1957, on its way to $655 in 1983; 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: 1983
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $655; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1983: $100 is worth $655 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1983/