$100 in 1938 is worth $188 in 1952,
because prices increased 87.9% over that period, an average of
4.61% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$188
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
87.9%
Average inflation rate
4.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$188
Price difference ($100 base)
$87.94
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1938 → 1952
$188
$100 in 1952 → 1938
$53.21
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1952
Between 1938 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 87.9%, which works out to an average of
4.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1952: the 1938 dollar
lost 46.8% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1952 at the same ratio, 1.88: $1,000 becomes
$1,879, and $10,000 becomes $18,794.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.88
$5.00
$9.40
$10.00
$18.79
$20.00
$37.59
$50.00
$93.97
$100
$188
$500
$940
$1,000
$1,879
$5,000
$9,397
$10,000
$18,794
$100,000
$187,943
$1,000,000
$1,879,433
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1952
Between 1938 and 1952, food rose the most, up 137.2%, while medical care rose the least, up 62.1%, against 87.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.61%
$188
Food
6.36%
$237
Apparel
5.02%
$199
Transportation
4.12%
$176
Medical care
3.51%
$162
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 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1938, at end
1938–1940
-0.36%
-0.7%
$99.29
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$171
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$188
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $128 by
1945, on its way to $188 in 1952; 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 1952, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $188; the year's average CPI of 26.5 is the level
behind every 1952 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.9% in 1952, down sharply from 1951’s
7.9% as the price and wage controls imposed the year before held the cost
of living in check even with the Korean War still underway. Labor strife
tested those controls that spring: to head off a strike that could have
disrupted war production, President Truman ordered the government to
seize the steel industry that April, over the objections of steel
companies fighting the price the Office of Price Stabilization had set for
their product. The Supreme Court ruled the seizure unconstitutional in
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer that June, a landmark limit on
presidential power, and steelworkers then struck for 53 days before a
settlement. Politics delivered the year’s biggest change that November:
Dwight Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson, promising to “go to Korea” to
end the war and returning Republicans to the White House for the first
time since 1933. The Cold War’s technological edge sharpened that same
month, when the United States tested the first hydrogen bomb at Enewetak
Atoll on November 1, a device hundreds of times more powerful than the
atomic bombs used against Japan in 1945. Consumer prices finished 1952
167.7% above their 1913 level. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1952: $100 is worth $188 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1952/