$100 in 1938 is worth $158 in 1947,
because prices increased 58.2% over that period, an average of
5.23% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$158
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
58.2%
Average inflation rate
5.23% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$158
Price difference ($100 base)
$58.16
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1938 → 1947
$158
$100 in 1947 → 1938
$63.23
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1947
Between 1938 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 58.2%, which works out to an average of
5.23% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.63 buys in 1947: the 1938 dollar
lost 36.8% of its purchasing power over
these 9 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 1947 at the same ratio, 1.58: $1,000 becomes
$1,582, and $10,000 becomes $15,816.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.58
$5.00
$7.91
$10.00
$15.82
$20.00
$31.63
$50.00
$79.08
$100
$158
$500
$791
$1,000
$1,582
$5,000
$7,908
$10,000
$15,816
$100,000
$158,156
$1,000,000
$1,581,560
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1947
Between 1938 and 1947, food rose the most, up 99.2%, while transportation rose the least, up 26.7%, against 58.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.23%
$158
Food
7.96%
$199
Apparel
6.89%
$182
Medical care
3.05%
$131
Transportation
2.67%
$127
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 1947
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.88% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1947 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1938, at end
1938–1940
-0.36%
-0.7%
$99.29
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$158
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $116 by
1942, on its way to $158 in 1947; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 1.4% in 1939, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $158; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1947: $100 is worth $158 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1947/