$100 in 1931 is worth $1,783 in 2021,
because prices increased 1682.7% over that period, an average of
3.25% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$1,783
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1682.7%
Average inflation rate
3.25% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,783
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,683
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1931 → 2021
$1,783
$100 in 2021 → 1931
$5.61
What happened to prices between 1931 and 2021
Between 1931 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1682.7%, which works out to an average of
3.25% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2021: the 1931 dollar
lost 94.4% of its purchasing power over
these 90 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 2021 at the same ratio, 17.83: $1,000 becomes
$17,827, and $10,000 becomes $178,270.
Amount in 1931
Value in 2021
$1.00
$17.83
$5.00
$89.13
$10.00
$178
$20.00
$357
$50.00
$891
$100
$1,783
$500
$8,913
$1,000
$17,827
$5,000
$89,135
$10,000
$178,270
$100,000
$1,782,697
$1,000,000
$17,826,974
Inflation by spending category, 1931–2021
Between 1931 and 2021, food rose the most, up 2053.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 450.0%, against 1682.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.25%
$1,783
Food
3.47%
$2,153
Apparel
1.91%
$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 2021
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 1931–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,783
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $374 by
1976, on its way to $1,783 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $1,783; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,783 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-2021/