$100 in 1938 is worth $138 in 1946,
because prices increased 38.3% over that period, an average of
4.14% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$138
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
38.3%
Average inflation rate
4.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$138
Price difference ($100 base)
$38.30
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1938 → 1946
$138
$100 in 1946 → 1938
$72.31
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1946
Between 1938 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 38.3%, which works out to an average of
4.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.72 buys in 1946: the 1938 dollar
lost 27.7% of its purchasing power over
these 8 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 1946 at the same ratio, 1.38: $1,000 becomes
$1,383, and $10,000 becomes $13,830.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.38
$5.00
$6.91
$10.00
$13.83
$20.00
$27.66
$50.00
$69.15
$100
$138
$500
$691
$1,000
$1,383
$5,000
$6,915
$10,000
$13,830
$100,000
$138,298
$1,000,000
$1,382,979
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1946
Between 1938 and 1946, food rose the most, up 63.6%, while transportation rose the least, up 14.4%, against 38.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.14%
$138
Food
6.35%
$164
Apparel
5.81%
$157
Medical care
2.45%
$121
Transportation
1.69%
$114
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 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.68% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1946 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1938, at end
1938–1940
-0.36%
-0.7%
$99.29
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$138
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $116 by
1942, on its way to $138 in 1946; 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 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $138; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1946: $100 is worth $138 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1946/