$100 in 1938 is worth $189 in 1953,
because prices increased 89.4% over that period, an average of
4.35% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$189
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
89.4%
Average inflation rate
4.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$189
Price difference ($100 base)
$89.36
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1938 → 1953
$189
$100 in 1953 → 1938
$52.81
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1953
Between 1938 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 89.4%, which works out to an average of
4.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1953: the 1938 dollar
lost 47.2% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1953 at the same ratio, 1.89: $1,000 becomes
$1,894, and $10,000 becomes $18,936.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.89
$5.00
$9.47
$10.00
$18.94
$20.00
$37.87
$50.00
$94.68
$100
$189
$500
$947
$1,000
$1,894
$5,000
$9,468
$10,000
$18,936
$100,000
$189,362
$1,000,000
$1,893,617
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1953
Between 1938 and 1953, food rose the most, up 133.9%, while medical care rose the least, up 68.0%, against 89.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.35%
$189
Food
5.83%
$234
Apparel
4.62%
$197
Transportation
4.05%
$182
Medical care
3.52%
$168
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 1953
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 1938–1953 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
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$189
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $128 by
1945, on its way to $189 in 1953; 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 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $189; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% 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 1953: $100 is worth $189 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1953/