$100 in 1914 is worth $141 in 1938,
because prices increased 41.0% over that period, an average of
1.44% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$141
in 1938
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
41.0%
Average inflation rate
1.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$141
Price difference ($100 base)
$41.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1938
14.1
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
$100 in 1914 → 1938
$141
$100 in 1938 → 1914
$70.92
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1938
Between 1914 and 1938, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 14.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 41.0%, which works out to an average of
1.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.71 buys in 1938: the 1914 dollar
lost 29.1% of its purchasing power over
these 24 years.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
Every 1914 amount converts to 1938 at the same ratio, 1.41: $1,000 becomes
$1,410, and $10,000 becomes $14,100.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1938
$1.00
$1.41
$5.00
$7.05
$10.00
$14.10
$20.00
$28.20
$50.00
$70.50
$100
$141
$500
$705
$1,000
$1,410
$5,000
$7,050
$10,000
$14,100
$100,000
$141,000
$1,000,000
$1,410,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1938
Between 1914 and 1938, apparel rose the most, up 46.0%, while food rose the least, up 18.6%, against 41.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1938, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.44%
$141
Apparel
1.59%
$146
Food
0.71%
$119
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1914: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1914 to 1938
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1930s (2.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1938 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$167
1930–1938
-2.09%
-15.6%
$141
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $177 by
1926, on its way to $141 in 1938; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1938, prices fell 2.1% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $141; the year's average CPI of 14.1 is the level
behind every 1938 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 2.1% in 1938, reversing most of 1937’s
gain and interrupting four straight years of recovery from the Depression’s
trough. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the bottom of the
downturn, which had begun that May, to June 1938, a sharp 13-month
contraction that briefly pushed unemployment back up near 19%. Even in a
year the economy was shrinking again, Congress passed one of the New Deal’s
most lasting reforms. The Fair Labor Standards Act, signed June 25 and
effective that October, established the first federal minimum wage, 25
cents an hour, capped the standard workweek at 44 hours with time-and-a-half
overtime beyond it, and restricted the employment of children in most
industries. The wage floor and hours limits applied only to workers engaged
in interstate commerce at first, but they set a precedent that would expand
in the decades that followed. Consumer prices stood 42.4% above their
1913 level and 17.5% below their 1929 peak, evidence of how
far the recovery still had to go even eight years after the Depression
began. First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1938: $100 is worth $141 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1938/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1938. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1938/