$100 in 1938 is worth $123 in 1943,
because prices increased 22.7% over that period, an average of
4.18% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$123
in 1943
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
22.7%
Average inflation rate
4.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$123
Price difference ($100 base)
$22.70
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1943
17.3
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
$100 in 1938 → 1943
$123
$100 in 1943 → 1938
$81.50
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1943
Between 1938 and 1943, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 17.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 22.7%, which works out to an average of
4.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.82 buys in 1943: the 1938 dollar
lost 18.5% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1943 at the same ratio, 1.23: $1,000 becomes
$1,227, and $10,000 becomes $12,270.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1943
$1.00
$1.23
$5.00
$6.13
$10.00
$12.27
$20.00
$24.54
$50.00
$61.35
$100
$123
$500
$613
$1,000
$1,227
$5,000
$6,135
$10,000
$12,270
$100,000
$122,695
$1,000,000
$1,226,950
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1943
Between 1938 and 1943, food rose the most, up 41.3%, while medical care rose the least, up 8.7%, against 22.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1943, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.18%
$123
Food
7.16%
$141
Apparel
4.89%
$127
Transportation
1.72%
$109
Medical care
1.69%
$109
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 1943
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 7.31% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1943 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1938, at end
1938–1940
-0.36%
-0.7%
$99.29
1940–1943
7.31%
23.6%
$123
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $99.29 by
1940, on its way to $123 in 1943; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 1.4% in 1939, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1943, prices rose 6.1% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $123; the year's average CPI of 17.3 is the level
behind every 1943 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1943: $100 is worth $123 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1943/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1943. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1943/