$100 in 1938 is worth $206 in 1959,
because prices increased 106.4% over that period, an average of
3.51% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$206
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
106.4%
Average inflation rate
3.51% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$206
Price difference ($100 base)
$106
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1938 → 1959
$206
$100 in 1959 → 1938
$48.45
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1959
Between 1938 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 106.4%, which works out to an average of
3.51% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1959: the 1938 dollar
lost 51.5% of its purchasing power over
these 21 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 1959 at the same ratio, 2.06: $1,000 becomes
$2,064, and $10,000 becomes $20,638.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1959
$1.00
$2.06
$5.00
$10.32
$10.00
$20.64
$20.00
$41.28
$50.00
$103
$100
$206
$500
$1,032
$1,000
$2,064
$5,000
$10,319
$10,000
$20,638
$100,000
$206,383
$1,000,000
$2,063,830
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1959
Between 1938 and 1959, food rose the most, up 145.5%, while transportation rose the least, up 104.1%, against 106.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.51%
$206
Food
4.37%
$245
Medical care
3.57%
$209
Apparel
3.49%
$205
Transportation
3.46%
$204
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 1959
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 1938–1959 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
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$206
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $171 by
1948, on its way to $206 in 1959; 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 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $206; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1959: $100 is worth $206 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1959/