$100 in 1931 is worth $1,211 in 2003,
because prices increased 1110.5% over that period, an average of
3.52% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$1,211
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1110.5%
Average inflation rate
3.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,211
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,111
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1931 → 2003
$1,211
$100 in 2003 → 1931
$8.26
What happened to prices between 1931 and 2003
Between 1931 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1110.5%, which works out to an average of
3.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2003: the 1931 dollar
lost 91.7% of its purchasing power over
these 72 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 2003 at the same ratio, 12.11: $1,000 becomes
$12,105, and $10,000 becomes $121,053.
Amount in 1931
Value in 2003
$1.00
$12.11
$5.00
$60.53
$10.00
$121
$20.00
$242
$50.00
$605
$100
$1,211
$500
$6,053
$1,000
$12,105
$5,000
$60,526
$10,000
$121,053
$100,000
$1,210,526
$1,000,000
$12,105,263
Inflation by spending category, 1931–2003
Between 1931 and 2003, food rose the most, up 1295.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 449.5%, against 1110.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.52%
$1,211
Food
3.73%
$1,395
Apparel
2.39%
$550
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 2003
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 1931–2003 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,133
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$1,211
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $213 by
1966, on its way to $1,211 in 2003; 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: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $1,211; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 2003: $100 is worth $1,211 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2003/