$100 in 1931 is worth $1,243 in 2004,
because prices increased 1142.8% over that period, an average of
3.51% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$1,243
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1142.8%
Average inflation rate
3.51% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,243
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,143
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1931 → 2004
$1,243
$100 in 2004 → 1931
$8.05
What happened to prices between 1931 and 2004
Between 1931 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1142.8%, which works out to an average of
3.51% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2004: the 1931 dollar
lost 92.0% of its purchasing power over
these 73 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 2004 at the same ratio, 12.43: $1,000 becomes
$12,428, and $10,000 becomes $124,276.
Amount in 1931
Value in 2004
$1.00
$12.43
$5.00
$62.14
$10.00
$124
$20.00
$249
$50.00
$621
$100
$1,243
$500
$6,214
$1,000
$12,428
$5,000
$62,138
$10,000
$124,276
$100,000
$1,242,763
$1,000,000
$12,427,632
Inflation by spending category, 1931–2004
Between 1931 and 2004, food rose the most, up 1343.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 447.3%, against 1142.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.51%
$1,243
Food
3.72%
$1,443
Apparel
2.36%
$547
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 2004
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 1931–2004 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
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$1,243
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $213 by
1966, on its way to $1,243 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $1,243; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 2004: $100 is worth $1,243 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2004/