$100 in 1928 is worth $82.46 in 1938,
because prices declined 17.5% over that period, an average of
1.91% a year.
$100 in 1928 has
the same buying power as
$82.46
in 1938
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-17.5%
Average inflation rate
-1.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$82.46
Price difference ($100 base)
-$17.54
CPI in 1928
17.1
CPI in 1938
14.1
Inflation in 1928
-1.72%
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
$100 in 1928 → 1938
$82.46
$100 in 1938 → 1928
$121
What happened to prices between 1928 and 1938
Between 1928 and 1938, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 14.1.
Cumulatively, prices declined 17.5%, which works out to an average of
-1.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1928 bought what
$1.21 buys in 1938: the 1928 dollar
gained 21.3% in purchasing power over
these 10 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1928, the second straight year of mild decline
even as the stock market climbed sharply, a widening gap between asset
prices and the cost of living that later economists pointed to as an early
warning sign. The Federal Reserve tightened policy repeatedly over the year,
raising its discount rate in an effort to slow the flood of borrowed money
pouring into stock purchases without derailing the broader economy, a
balancing act it ultimately failed to manage. Herbert Hoover won the
presidential election that November, defeating Democrat Al Smith on a
platform built around continuing the prosperity of the Coolidge years; few
voters or policymakers anticipated how quickly that prosperity would end.
First-class postage remained at 2 cents, a price that had now held for nine
straight years.
Every 1928 amount converts to 1938 at the same ratio, 0.82: $1,000 becomes
$825, and $10,000 becomes $8,246.
Amount in 1928
Value in 1938
$1.00
$0.82
$5.00
$4.12
$10.00
$8.25
$20.00
$16.49
$50.00
$41.23
$100
$82.46
$500
$412
$1,000
$825
$5,000
$4,123
$10,000
$8,246
$100,000
$82,456
$1,000,000
$824,561
Inflation by spending category, 1928–1938
Every category fell between 1928 and 1938: food the most, down 25.8%, and apparel the least, down 12.4%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1928
spending costs in 1938, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1928 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.91%
$82.46
Apparel
-1.32%
$87.60
Food
-2.94%
$74.23
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1928: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1928 to 1938
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.2% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (2.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1928–1938 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1928, at end
1928–1930
-1.18%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1938
-2.09%
-15.6%
$82.46
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1928
$100 from 1928 had already become $76.02 by
1933, on its way to $82.46 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 1928 had the buying
power of $82.46; 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 1928 to 1938: $100 is worth $82.46 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1928-to-1938/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1928 to 1938. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1928-to-1938/