$100 in 1931 is worth $1,411 in 2009,
because prices increased 1311.4% over that period, an average of
3.45% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$1,411
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1311.4%
Average inflation rate
3.45% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,411
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,311
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1931 → 2009
$1,411
$100 in 2009 → 1931
$7.09
What happened to prices between 1931 and 2009
Between 1931 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1311.4%, which works out to an average of
3.45% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2009: the 1931 dollar
lost 92.9% of its purchasing power over
these 78 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 2009 at the same ratio, 14.11: $1,000 becomes
$14,114, and $10,000 becomes $141,143.
Amount in 1931
Value in 2009
$1.00
$14.11
$5.00
$70.57
$10.00
$141
$20.00
$282
$50.00
$706
$100
$1,411
$500
$7,057
$1,000
$14,114
$5,000
$70,571
$10,000
$141,143
$100,000
$1,411,428
$1,000,000
$14,114,276
Inflation by spending category, 1931–2009
Between 1931 and 2009, food rose the most, up 1589.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 445.8%, against 1311.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.45%
$1,411
Food
3.69%
$1,690
Apparel
2.20%
$546
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 2009
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 1931–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,411
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $266 by
1971, on its way to $1,411 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $1,411; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,411 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2009/