$100 in 1938 is worth $104 in 1941,
because prices increased 4.3% over that period, an average of
1.40% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$104
in 1941
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
4.3%
Average inflation rate
1.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$104
Price difference ($100 base)
$4.26
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1941
14.7
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
$100 in 1938 → 1941
$104
$100 in 1941 → 1938
$95.92
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1941
Between 1938 and 1941, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 14.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 4.3%, which works out to an average of
1.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.96 buys in 1941: the 1938 dollar
lost 4.1% of its purchasing power over
these 3 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 1941 at the same ratio, 1.04: $1,000 becomes
$1,043, and $10,000 becomes $10,426.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1941
$1.00
$1.04
$5.00
$5.21
$10.00
$10.43
$20.00
$20.85
$50.00
$52.13
$100
$104
$500
$521
$1,000
$1,043
$5,000
$5,213
$10,000
$10,426
$100,000
$104,255
$1,000,000
$1,042,553
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1941
Between 1938 and 1941, food rose the most, up 8.3%, while transportation rose the least, up 0.7%, against 4.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1941, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.40%
$104
Food
2.68%
$108
Apparel
1.35%
$104
Medical care
0.32%
$101
Transportation
0.23%
$101
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–).
Decade by decade: 1938 to 1941
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.00% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1941 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1938, at end
1938–1940
-0.36%
-0.7%
$99.29
1940–1941
5.00%
5.0%
$104
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $98.58 by
1939, on its way to $104 in 1941; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.0% in 1941, and prices fell 1.4% in 1939, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1941, prices rose 5.0% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $104; the year's average CPI of 14.7 is the level
behind every 1941 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1941: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1941/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1941. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1941/