Consumer prices were unchanged in 1929, the CPI’s annual average flat for the second time in six years and a fitting close to a decade that began with wartime inflation and ended in rough price stability. By year’s end the index stood 14.5% below its 1920 peak and roughly 73% above its 1913 starting point, a reminder that even a “stable” decade left prices well above where they had started. The stability in the cost of living masked what was building in financial markets. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to that August, the month the business cycle peaked, months before most Americans noticed anything was wrong. The break came that October: panic selling hit Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and returned even worse on Black Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in a single session. Billions of dollars in paper wealth disappeared within days, and the crash marked the start of a downturn that would pull consumer prices into their steepest sustained decline of the 20th century over the next four years. First-class postage was still 2 cents, a price that would hold until 1932.
Year in review
Inflation in 1929
The U.S. inflation rate in 1929 was 0.0% (CPI: 17.1). Convert 1929 dollars to today →
0.0% 1929 inflation rate
0.1% 1920s average
1.2% peak month (Jul)
-1.2% lowest month (Apr)
What things cost in 1929
| First-class stamp | $0.02 |
|---|
What $100 from 1929 was worth later
| In 1930 | $97.66 |
|---|---|
| In 1940 | $81.87 |
| In 1950 | $141 |
| In 1960 | $173 |
| In 1970 | $227 |
| In 1980 | $482 |
| In 1990 | $764 |
| In 2000 | $1,007 |
| In 2010 | $1,275 |
| In 2020 | $1,514 |
| In 2026 | $1,940 |
Inflation in 1929, month by month
| Month | CPI-U | 12-month rate |
|---|---|---|
| January | 17.1 | -1.2% |
| February | 17.1 | 0.0% |
| March | 17 | -0.6% |
| April | 16.9 | -1.2% |
| May | 17 | -1.2% |
| June | 17.1 | 0.0% |
| July | 17.3 | 1.2% |
| August | 17.3 | 1.2% |
| September | 17.3 | 0.0% |
| October | 17.3 | 0.6% |
| November | 17.3 | 0.6% |
| December | 17.2 | 0.6% |
Economic events of 1929
- Consumer prices hold flat as the decade ends The CPI's annual average was unchanged from 1928, capping a decade in which prices, after the wartime surge and the sharp deflation of 1920-21, had settled into rough stability; the index finished 1929 14.5% below its 1920 peak.
- The Great Depression begins, months before the crash The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to August 1929, the month the economy's business cycle peaked, well before the stock market's collapse that October made the downturn visible to most Americans.
- The stock market crashes Panic selling hit Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and again on Black Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in a single session. The crash wiped out billions in paper wealth and marked the start of the long slide into the Great Depression.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index history; National Bureau of Economic Research, US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions; USPS historical postage rates.
Inflation figures: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U annual averages. See the methodology.