$100 in 1933 is worth $107 in 1939,
because prices increased 6.9% over that period, an average of
1.12% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$107
in 1939
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
6.9%
Average inflation rate
1.12% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$107
Price difference ($100 base)
$6.92
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 1939
13.9
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
$100 in 1933 → 1939
$107
$100 in 1939 → 1933
$93.53
What happened to prices between 1933 and 1939
Between 1933 and 1939, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 6.9%, which works out to an average of
1.12% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.94 buys in 1939: the 1933 dollar
lost 6.5% of its purchasing power over
these 6 years.
Consumer prices fell 5.1% in 1933, a smaller decline than 1932’s
but enough to complete a four-year slide of 24.0% from the 1929
peak. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the trough of that
contraction to March 1933, closing out the longest downturn in its
chronology, one that had run 43 months since August 1929. The bottom
arrived alongside a change in government: Franklin D. Roosevelt was
inaugurated March 4 and, within 48 hours, ordered every bank in the country
closed to halt a fresh round of runs. Congress passed the Emergency Banking
Act on March 9, letting solvent banks reopen under federal supervision, and
the panic that had been building for months broke almost immediately. The
administration moved on the currency next: Executive Order 6102, issued
April 5, required Americans to turn in most gold coin, bullion, and
certificates to the Federal Reserve, taking the country off the domestic
gold standard (formal devaluation of the dollar followed the next January).
Congress capped the year’s banking overhaul in June with the Banking Act of
1933, commonly called Glass-Steagall, which created the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation and separated commercial banking from investment
banking. Even after four straight years of falling prices, the CPI still
stood 31.3% above its 1913 level. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
Every 1933 amount converts to 1939 at the same ratio, 1.07: $1,000 becomes
$1,069, and $10,000 becomes $10,692.
Amount in 1933
Value in 1939
$1.00
$1.07
$5.00
$5.35
$10.00
$10.69
$20.00
$21.38
$50.00
$53.46
$100
$107
$500
$535
$1,000
$1,069
$5,000
$5,346
$10,000
$10,692
$100,000
$106,923
$1,000,000
$1,069,231
Inflation by spending category, 1933–1939
Between 1933 and 1939, apparel rose the most, up 14.9%, while food rose the least, up 13.5%, against 6.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 1939, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.12%
$107
Apparel
2.34%
$115
Food
2.13%
$113
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1933: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $107 by
1936, on its way to $107 in 1939; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.6% in 1937, and prices fell 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1939, prices fell 1.4% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $107; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1939 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1933 to 1939: $100 is worth $107 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1939/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 1939. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1939/