$100 in 1933 is worth $1,730 in 2011,
because prices increased 1630.3% over that period, an average of
3.72% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$1,730
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1630.3%
Average inflation rate
3.72% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,730
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,630
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1933 → 2011
$1,730
$100 in 2011 → 1933
$5.78
What happened to prices between 1933 and 2011
Between 1933 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1630.3%, which works out to an average of
3.72% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2011: the 1933 dollar
lost 94.2% of its purchasing power over
these 78 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 2011 at the same ratio, 17.30: $1,000 becomes
$17,303, and $10,000 becomes $173,030.
Amount in 1933
Value in 2011
$1.00
$17.30
$5.00
$86.52
$10.00
$173
$20.00
$346
$50.00
$865
$100
$1,730
$500
$8,652
$1,000
$17,303
$5,000
$86,515
$10,000
$173,030
$100,000
$1,730,300
$1,000,000
$17,303,000
Inflation by spending category, 1933–2011
Between 1933 and 2011, food rose the most, up 2090.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 549.5%, against 1630.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.72%
$1,730
Food
4.04%
$2,191
Apparel
2.43%
$650
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 2011
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 1933–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,677
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,730
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $342 by
1973, on its way to $1,730 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $1,730; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1933 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,730 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-2011/