$100 in 1938 is worth $199 in 1957,
because prices increased 99.3% over that period, an average of
3.70% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$199
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
99.3%
Average inflation rate
3.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$199
Price difference ($100 base)
$99.29
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1938 → 1957
$199
$100 in 1957 → 1938
$50.18
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1957
Between 1938 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 99.3%, which works out to an average of
3.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1957: the 1938 dollar
lost 49.8% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1957 at the same ratio, 1.99: $1,000 becomes
$1,993, and $10,000 becomes $19,929.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.99
$5.00
$9.96
$10.00
$19.93
$20.00
$39.86
$50.00
$99.65
$100
$199
$500
$996
$1,000
$1,993
$5,000
$9,965
$10,000
$19,929
$100,000
$199,291
$1,000,000
$1,992,908
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1957
Between 1938 and 1957, food rose the most, up 138.8%, while transportation rose the least, up 89.7%, against 99.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.70%
$199
Food
4.69%
$239
Apparel
3.80%
$203
Medical care
3.47%
$191
Transportation
3.43%
$190
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 1957
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 1938–1957 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
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$199
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $158 by
1947, on its way to $199 in 1957; 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 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $199; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1957: $100 is worth $199 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1957/