$100 in 1931 is worth $1,480 in 2011,
because prices increased 1379.9% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$1,480
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1379.9%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,480
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,380
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1931 → 2011
$1,480
$100 in 2011 → 1931
$6.76
What happened to prices between 1931 and 2011
Between 1931 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1379.9%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2011: the 1931 dollar
lost 93.2% of its purchasing power over
these 80 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 2011 at the same ratio, 14.80: $1,000 becomes
$14,799, and $10,000 becomes $147,986.
Amount in 1931
Value in 2011
$1.00
$14.80
$5.00
$73.99
$10.00
$148
$20.00
$296
$50.00
$740
$100
$1,480
$500
$7,399
$1,000
$14,799
$5,000
$73,993
$10,000
$147,986
$100,000
$1,479,862
$1,000,000
$14,798,618
Inflation by spending category, 1931–2011
Between 1931 and 2011, food rose the most, up 1666.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 455.1%, against 1379.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$1,480
Food
3.65%
$1,766
Apparel
2.17%
$555
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 2011
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 1931–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,435
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,480
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $266 by
1971, on its way to $1,480 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $1,480; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,480 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2011/