$100 in 1938 is worth $128 in 1945,
because prices increased 27.7% over that period, an average of
3.55% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$128
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
27.7%
Average inflation rate
3.55% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$128
Price difference ($100 base)
$27.66
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1938 → 1945
$128
$100 in 1945 → 1938
$78.33
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1945
Between 1938 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices increased 27.7%, which works out to an average of
3.55% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1945: the 1938 dollar
lost 21.7% of its purchasing power over
these 7 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 1945 at the same ratio, 1.28: $1,000 becomes
$1,277, and $10,000 becomes $12,766.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1945
$1.00
$1.28
$5.00
$6.38
$10.00
$12.77
$20.00
$25.53
$50.00
$63.83
$100
$128
$500
$638
$1,000
$1,277
$5,000
$6,383
$10,000
$12,766
$100,000
$127,660
$1,000,000
$1,276,596
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1945
Between 1938 and 1945, apparel rose the most, up 43.4%, while transportation rose the least, up 8.9%, against 27.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.55%
$128
Apparel
5.28%
$143
Food
5.24%
$143
Medical care
2.08%
$116
Transportation
1.23%
$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 1945
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.15% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1945 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1938, at end
1938–1940
-0.36%
-0.7%
$99.29
1940–1945
5.15%
28.6%
$128
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $104 by
1941, on its way to $128 in 1945; 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 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $128; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1945: $100 is worth $128 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1945/