$100 in 1931 is worth $975 in 1994,
because prices increased 875.0% over that period, an average of
3.68% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$975
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
875.0%
Average inflation rate
3.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$975
Price difference ($100 base)
$875
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1931 → 1994
$975
$100 in 1994 → 1931
$10.26
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1994
Between 1931 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 875.0%, which works out to an average of
3.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.10 buys in 1994: the 1931 dollar
lost 89.7% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 1994 at the same ratio, 9.75: $1,000 becomes
$9,750, and $10,000 becomes $97,500.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1994
$1.00
$9.75
$5.00
$48.75
$10.00
$97.50
$20.00
$195
$50.00
$488
$100
$975
$500
$4,875
$1,000
$9,750
$5,000
$48,750
$10,000
$97,500
$100,000
$975,000
$1,000,000
$9,750,000
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1994
Between 1931 and 1994, food rose the most, up 1018.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 506.4%, against 875.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.68%
$975
Food
3.91%
$1,119
Apparel
2.90%
$606
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 1994
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 1931–1994 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$860
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$975
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $197 by
1961, on its way to $975 in 1994; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $975; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1994: $100 is worth $975 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1994/