$100 in 1931 is worth $708 in 1985,
because prices increased 607.9% over that period, an average of
3.69% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$708
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
607.9%
Average inflation rate
3.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$708
Price difference ($100 base)
$608
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1931 → 1985
$708
$100 in 1985 → 1931
$14.13
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1985
Between 1931 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 607.9%, which works out to an average of
3.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1985: the 1931 dollar
lost 85.9% of its purchasing power over
these 54 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 1985 at the same ratio, 7.08: $1,000 becomes
$7,079, and $10,000 becomes $70,789.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1985
$1.00
$7.08
$5.00
$35.39
$10.00
$70.79
$20.00
$142
$50.00
$354
$100
$708
$500
$3,539
$1,000
$7,079
$5,000
$35,395
$10,000
$70,789
$100,000
$707,895
$1,000,000
$7,078,947
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1985
Between 1931 and 1985, food rose the most, up 718.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 377.3%, against 607.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.69%
$708
Food
3.97%
$819
Apparel
2.94%
$477
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 1985
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 1931–1985 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
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$708
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $185 by
1957, on its way to $708 in 1985; 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: 1985
In 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $708; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1985: $100 is worth $708 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1985/