$100 in 1931 is worth $684 in 1984,
because prices increased 583.6% over that period, an average of
3.69% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$684
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
583.6%
Average inflation rate
3.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$684
Price difference ($100 base)
$584
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1931 → 1984
$684
$100 in 1984 → 1931
$14.63
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1984
Between 1931 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 583.6%, which works out to an average of
3.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1984: the 1931 dollar
lost 85.4% of its purchasing power over
these 53 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 1984 at the same ratio, 6.84: $1,000 becomes
$6,836, and $10,000 becomes $68,355.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1984
$1.00
$6.84
$5.00
$34.18
$10.00
$68.36
$20.00
$137
$50.00
$342
$100
$684
$500
$3,418
$1,000
$6,836
$5,000
$34,178
$10,000
$68,355
$100,000
$683,553
$1,000,000
$6,835,526
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1984
Between 1931 and 1984, food rose the most, up 700.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 364.1%, against 583.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.69%
$684
Food
4.00%
$800
Apparel
2.94%
$464
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 1984
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 1931–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$684
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $185 by
1957, on its way to $684 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $684; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1984: $100 is worth $684 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1984/