$100 in 1916 is worth $129 in 1938,
because prices increased 29.4% over that period, an average of
1.18% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$129
in 1938
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
29.4%
Average inflation rate
1.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$129
Price difference ($100 base)
$29.36
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1938
14.1
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
$100 in 1916 → 1938
$129
$100 in 1938 → 1916
$77.30
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1938
Between 1916 and 1938, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 14.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 29.4%, which works out to an average of
1.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.77 buys in 1938: the 1916 dollar
lost 22.7% of its purchasing power over
these 22 years.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
Every 1916 amount converts to 1938 at the same ratio, 1.29: $1,000 becomes
$1,294, and $10,000 becomes $12,936.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1938
$1.00
$1.29
$5.00
$6.47
$10.00
$12.94
$20.00
$25.87
$50.00
$64.68
$100
$129
$500
$647
$1,000
$1,294
$5,000
$6,468
$10,000
$12,936
$100,000
$129,358
$1,000,000
$1,293,578
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1938
Between 1916 and 1938, apparel rose the most, up 30.4%, while food rose the least, up 7.1%, against 29.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1938, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.18%
$129
Apparel
1.21%
$130
Food
0.31%
$107
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1916: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1916 to 1938
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1930s (2.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1938 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$153
1930–1938
-2.09%
-15.6%
$129
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $160 by
1927, on its way to $129 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 1916 had the buying
power of $129; 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 1916 to 1938: $100 is worth $129 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1938/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1938. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1938/