$100 in 1931 is worth $816 in 1989,
because prices increased 715.8% over that period, an average of
3.69% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$816
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
715.8%
Average inflation rate
3.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$816
Price difference ($100 base)
$716
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1931 → 1989
$816
$100 in 1989 → 1931
$12.26
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1989
Between 1931 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 715.8%, which works out to an average of
3.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1989: the 1931 dollar
lost 87.7% of its purchasing power over
these 58 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 1989 at the same ratio, 8.16: $1,000 becomes
$8,158, and $10,000 becomes $81,579.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1989
$1.00
$8.16
$5.00
$40.79
$10.00
$81.58
$20.00
$163
$50.00
$408
$100
$816
$500
$4,079
$1,000
$8,158
$5,000
$40,789
$10,000
$81,579
$100,000
$815,789
$1,000,000
$8,157,895
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1989
Between 1931 and 1989, food rose the most, up 869.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 439.1%, against 715.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.69%
$816
Food
3.99%
$970
Apparel
2.95%
$539
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 1989
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 1931–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$816
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $191 by
1959, on its way to $816 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $816; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1989: $100 is worth $816 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1989/