$100 in 1933 is worth $742 in 1982,
because prices increased 642.3% over that period, an average of
4.18% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$742
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
642.3%
Average inflation rate
4.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$742
Price difference ($100 base)
$642
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1933 → 1982
$742
$100 in 1982 → 1933
$13.47
What happened to prices between 1933 and 1982
Between 1933 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 642.3%, which works out to an average of
4.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.13 buys in 1982: the 1933 dollar
lost 86.5% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 1982 at the same ratio, 7.42: $1,000 becomes
$7,423, and $10,000 becomes $74,231.
Amount in 1933
Value in 1982
$1.00
$7.42
$5.00
$37.12
$10.00
$74.23
$20.00
$148
$50.00
$371
$100
$742
$500
$3,712
$1,000
$7,423
$5,000
$37,115
$10,000
$74,231
$100,000
$742,308
$1,000,000
$7,423,077
Inflation by spending category, 1933–1982
Between 1933 and 1982, food rose the most, up 836.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 420.2%, against 642.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.18%
$742
Food
4.67%
$937
Apparel
3.42%
$520
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–).
Decade by decade: 1933 to 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (1.06% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1933–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1933, at end
1933–1940
1.06%
7.7%
$108
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$185
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$228
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$298
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$634
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$742
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $216 by
1957, on its way to $742 in 1982; 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 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $742; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1933 to 1982: $100 is worth $742 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1982/