$100 in 1932 is worth $283 in 1970,
because prices increased 183.2% over that period, an average of
2.78% a year.
$100 in 1932 has
the same buying power as
$283
in 1970
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
183.2%
Average inflation rate
2.78% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$283
Price difference ($100 base)
$183
CPI in 1932
13.7
CPI in 1970
38.8
Inflation in 1932
-9.87%
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
$100 in 1932 → 1970
$283
$100 in 1970 → 1932
$35.31
What happened to prices between 1932 and 1970
Between 1932 and 1970, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.7 to 38.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 183.2%, which works out to an average of
2.78% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1932 bought what
$0.35 buys in 1970: the 1932 dollar
lost 64.7% of its purchasing power over
these 38 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the steepest single-year drop in the
CPI’s history to that point and the third straight year of decline following
1930 and 1931. Wages, farm incomes, and
industrial output all kept falling, and Congress tried to arrest the credit
collapse by creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation that January,
capitalized at $500 million with authority to borrow up to $1.5 billion to
lend directly to banks, railroads, and other struggling businesses. Relief
did not reach ordinary households as quickly. That summer, tens of thousands
of World War I veterans and their families camped in Washington demanding
early payment of a service bonus not due until 1945; in July, U.S. Army
troops under General Douglas MacArthur forcibly dispersed the encampment, an
episode that badly damaged the Hoover administration’s standing months
before an election it was already losing. Voters delivered their verdict on
November 8, electing Franklin D. Roosevelt in a landslide over the
incumbent Hoover on a promise of relief and a “new deal for the American
people.” Roosevelt would not take office until the following March, leaving
a long and difficult transition during the depths of the crisis. First-class
postage rose from 2 cents to 3 cents on July 6, the first change to the rate
since 1919.
Every 1932 amount converts to 1970 at the same ratio, 2.83: $1,000 becomes
$2,832, and $10,000 becomes $28,321.
Amount in 1932
Value in 1970
$1.00
$2.83
$5.00
$14.16
$10.00
$28.32
$20.00
$56.64
$50.00
$142
$100
$283
$500
$1,416
$1,000
$2,832
$5,000
$14,161
$10,000
$28,321
$100,000
$283,212
$1,000,000
$2,832,117
Inflation by spending category, 1932–1970
Between 1932 and 1970, food rose the most, up 266.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 203.6%, against 183.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1932
spending costs in 1970, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1932 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.78%
$283
Food
3.48%
$366
Apparel
2.97%
$304
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1932: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1932 to 1970
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.27% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1932–1970 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1932, at end
1932–1940
0.27%
2.2%
$102
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$176
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$216
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$283
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1932
$100 from 1932 had already become $176 by
1950, on its way to $283 in 1970; 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 5.1% in 1933, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1970
In 1970, prices rose 5.7% and $100 from 1932 had the buying
power of $283; the year's average CPI of 38.8 is the level
behind every 1970 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1932 to 1970: $100 is worth $283 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1932-to-1970/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1932 to 1970. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1932-to-1970/