$100 in 1933 is worth $1,650 in 2009,
because prices increased 1550.3% over that period, an average of
3.76% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$1,650
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1550.3%
Average inflation rate
3.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,650
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,550
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1933 → 2009
$1,650
$100 in 2009 → 1933
$6.06
What happened to prices between 1933 and 2009
Between 1933 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1550.3%, which works out to an average of
3.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2009: the 1933 dollar
lost 93.9% of its purchasing power over
these 76 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 2009 at the same ratio, 16.50: $1,000 becomes
$16,503, and $10,000 becomes $165,028.
Amount in 1933
Value in 2009
$1.00
$16.50
$5.00
$82.51
$10.00
$165
$20.00
$330
$50.00
$825
$100
$1,650
$500
$8,251
$1,000
$16,503
$5,000
$82,514
$10,000
$165,028
$100,000
$1,650,285
$1,000,000
$16,502,846
Inflation by spending category, 1933–2009
Between 1933 and 2009, food rose the most, up 1995.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 538.7%, against 1550.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.76%
$1,650
Food
4.08%
$2,096
Apparel
2.47%
$639
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 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (1.06% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1933–2009 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$1,005
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,325
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,650
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $342 by
1973, on its way to $1,650 in 2009; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $1,650; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1933 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,650 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-2009/