$100 in 1933 is worth $1,991 in 2020,
because prices increased 1890.9% over that period, an average of
3.50% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$1,991
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1890.9%
Average inflation rate
3.50% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,991
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,891
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1933 → 2020
$1,991
$100 in 2020 → 1933
$5.02
What happened to prices between 1933 and 2020
Between 1933 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1890.9%, which works out to an average of
3.50% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2020: the 1933 dollar
lost 95.0% of its purchasing power over
these 87 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 2020 at the same ratio, 19.91: $1,000 becomes
$19,909, and $10,000 becomes $199,085.
Amount in 1933
Value in 2020
$1.00
$19.91
$5.00
$99.54
$10.00
$199
$20.00
$398
$50.00
$995
$100
$1,991
$500
$9,954
$1,000
$19,909
$5,000
$99,543
$10,000
$199,085
$100,000
$1,990,854
$1,000,000
$19,908,538
Inflation by spending category, 1933–2020
Between 1933 and 2020, food rose the most, up 2469.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 528.1%, against 1890.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.50%
$1,991
Food
3.80%
$2,569
Apparel
2.13%
$628
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 2020
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 1933–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,991
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $502 by
1978, on its way to $1,991 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $1,991; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1933 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,991 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-2020/