$100 in 1927 is worth $81.03 in 1938,
because prices declined 19.0% over that period, an average of
1.89% a year.
$100 in 1927 has
the same buying power as
$81.03
in 1938
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-19.0%
Average inflation rate
-1.89% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$81.03
Price difference ($100 base)
-$18.97
CPI in 1927
17.4
CPI in 1938
14.1
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
$100 in 1927 → 1938
$81.03
$100 in 1938 → 1927
$123
What happened to prices between 1927 and 1938
Between 1927 and 1938, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.4 to 14.1.
Cumulatively, prices declined 19.0%, which works out to an average of
-1.89% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1927 bought what
$1.23 buys in 1938: the 1927 dollar
gained 23.4% in purchasing power over
these 11 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
Every 1927 amount converts to 1938 at the same ratio, 0.81: $1,000 becomes
$810, and $10,000 becomes $8,103.
Amount in 1927
Value in 1938
$1.00
$0.81
$5.00
$4.05
$10.00
$8.10
$20.00
$16.21
$50.00
$40.52
$100
$81.03
$500
$405
$1,000
$810
$5,000
$4,052
$10,000
$8,103
$100,000
$81,034
$1,000,000
$810,345
Inflation by spending category, 1927–1938
Every category fell between 1927 and 1938: food the most, down 26.2%, and apparel the least, down 13.4%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1927
spending costs in 1938, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1927 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.89%
$81.03
Apparel
-1.30%
$86.56
Food
-2.73%
$73.78
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1927: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1927 to 1938
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.4% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (2.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1927–1938 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1927, at end
1927–1930
-1.36%
-4.0%
$95.98
1930–1938
-2.09%
-15.6%
$81.03
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1927
$100 from 1927 had already become $78.74 by
1932, on its way to $81.03 in 1938; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.6% in 1937, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1938, prices fell 2.1% and $100 from 1927 had the buying
power of $81.03; 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 1927 to 1938: $100 is worth $81.03 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1938/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1927 to 1938. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1938/