$100 in 1933 is worth $2,084 in 2021,
because prices increased 1984.4% over that period, an average of
3.51% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$2,084
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1984.4%
Average inflation rate
3.51% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,084
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,984
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1933 → 2021
$2,084
$100 in 2021 → 1933
$4.80
What happened to prices between 1933 and 2021
Between 1933 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1984.4%, which works out to an average of
3.51% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2021: the 1933 dollar
lost 95.2% of its purchasing power over
these 88 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 2021 at the same ratio, 20.84: $1,000 becomes
$20,844, and $10,000 becomes $208,438.
Amount in 1933
Value in 2021
$1.00
$20.84
$5.00
$104
$10.00
$208
$20.00
$417
$50.00
$1,042
$100
$2,084
$500
$10,422
$1,000
$20,844
$5,000
$104,219
$10,000
$208,438
$100,000
$2,084,385
$1,000,000
$20,843,846
Inflation by spending category, 1933–2021
Between 1933 and 2021, food rose the most, up 2570.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 543.6%, against 1984.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.51%
$2,084
Food
3.80%
$2,671
Apparel
2.14%
$644
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 2021
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 1933–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$2,084
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $502 by
1978, on its way to $2,084 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $2,084; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1933 to 2021: $100 is worth $2,084 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-2021/