$100 in 1931 is worth $1,703 in 2020,
because prices increased 1602.7% over that period, an average of
3.24% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$1,703
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1602.7%
Average inflation rate
3.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,703
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,603
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1931 → 2020
$1,703
$100 in 2020 → 1931
$5.87
What happened to prices between 1931 and 2020
Between 1931 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1602.7%, which works out to an average of
3.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2020: the 1931 dollar
lost 94.1% of its purchasing power over
these 89 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 2020 at the same ratio, 17.03: $1,000 becomes
$17,027, and $10,000 becomes $170,270.
Amount in 1931
Value in 2020
$1.00
$17.03
$5.00
$85.14
$10.00
$170
$20.00
$341
$50.00
$851
$100
$1,703
$500
$8,514
$1,000
$17,027
$5,000
$85,135
$10,000
$170,270
$100,000
$1,702,704
$1,000,000
$17,027,039
Inflation by spending category, 1931–2020
Between 1931 and 2020, food rose the most, up 1971.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 436.7%, against 1602.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.24%
$1,703
Food
3.46%
$2,071
Apparel
1.91%
$537
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 2020
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 1931–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,703
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $374 by
1976, on its way to $1,703 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $1,703; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,703 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2020/