$100 in 1938 is worth $98.58 in 1939,
because prices declined 1.4% over that period, an average of
1.42% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$98.58
in 1939
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-1.4%
Average inflation rate
-1.42% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$98.58
Price difference ($100 base)
-$1.42
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1939
13.9
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
$100 in 1938 → 1939
$98.58
$100 in 1939 → 1938
$101
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1939
Between 1938 and 1939, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices declined 1.4%, which works out to an average of
-1.42% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$1.01 buys in 1939: the 1938 dollar
gained 1.4% in purchasing power over
these 1 years.
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.
Every 1938 amount converts to 1939 at the same ratio, 0.99: $1,000 becomes
$986, and $10,000 becomes $9,858.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1939
$1.00
$0.99
$5.00
$4.93
$10.00
$9.86
$20.00
$19.72
$50.00
$49.29
$100
$98.58
$500
$493
$1,000
$986
$5,000
$4,929
$10,000
$9,858
$100,000
$98,582
$1,000,000
$985,816
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1939
Between 1938 and 1939, medical care rose the most, up 0.0%, while food fell 2.5%, against 1.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1939, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.42%
$98.58
Medical care
0.00%
$100
Apparel
-1.37%
$98.63
Transportation
-2.05%
$97.95
Food
-2.48%
$97.52
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1938: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938shrank to $98.58 by 1939; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1939, prices fell 1.4% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $98.58; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1939 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1939: $100 is worth $98.58 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1939/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1939. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1939/