$100 in 1938 is worth $125 in 1944,
because prices increased 24.8% over that period, an average of
3.76% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$125
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
24.8%
Average inflation rate
3.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$125
Price difference ($100 base)
$24.82
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1938 → 1944
$125
$100 in 1944 → 1938
$80.11
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1944
Between 1938 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 24.8%, which works out to an average of
3.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.80 buys in 1944: the 1938 dollar
lost 19.9% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1944 at the same ratio, 1.25: $1,000 becomes
$1,248, and $10,000 becomes $12,482.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.25
$5.00
$6.24
$10.00
$12.48
$20.00
$24.96
$50.00
$62.41
$100
$125
$500
$624
$1,000
$1,248
$5,000
$6,241
$10,000
$12,482
$100,000
$124,823
$1,000,000
$1,248,227
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1944
Between 1938 and 1944, food rose the most, up 39.7%, while transportation rose the least, up 8.9%, against 24.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.76%
$125
Food
5.73%
$140
Apparel
5.27%
$136
Medical care
2.00%
$113
Transportation
1.43%
$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 1944
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.89% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1944 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1938, at end
1938–1940
-0.36%
-0.7%
$99.29
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$125
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $104 by
1941, on its way to $125 in 1944; 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 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $125; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1944: $100 is worth $125 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1944/