$100 in 1938 is worth $210 in 1960,
because prices increased 109.9% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$210
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
109.9%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$210
Price difference ($100 base)
$110
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1938 → 1960
$210
$100 in 1960 → 1938
$47.64
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1960
Between 1938 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 109.9%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1960: the 1938 dollar
lost 52.4% of its purchasing power over
these 22 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 1960 at the same ratio, 2.10: $1,000 becomes
$2,099, and $10,000 becomes $20,993.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1960
$1.00
$2.10
$5.00
$10.50
$10.00
$20.99
$20.00
$41.99
$50.00
$105
$100
$210
$500
$1,050
$1,000
$2,099
$5,000
$10,496
$10,000
$20,993
$100,000
$209,929
$1,000,000
$2,099,291
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1960
Between 1938 and 1960, food rose the most, up 147.9%, while transportation rose the least, up 104.1%, against 109.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$210
Food
4.21%
$248
Medical care
3.57%
$217
Apparel
3.40%
$209
Transportation
3.30%
$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 1960
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 1938–1960 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
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$210
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $169 by
1949, on its way to $210 in 1960; 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 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $210; the year's average CPI of 29.6 is the level
behind every 1960 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.7% in 1960, up from 1959’s 0.7% even
as the economy slipped into recession that April, a downturn that would
prove the shortest since World War II. The year’s defining political
moment came that November, when John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard
Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history,
decided by roughly two-tenths of a percentage point in the popular vote.
Television played a new role in the race: the first-ever televised
presidential debate that September, watched by an estimated 70 million
people, was widely seen as favoring the telegenic Kennedy. Civil rights
protest took a new form that February, when four Black freshmen at North
Carolina A&T State University sat down at a whites-only Woolworth’s lunch
counter in Greensboro and refused to leave; the sit-in tactic spread to
dozens of Southern cities within weeks. Cold War tensions flared that May,
when a Soviet missile downed an American U-2 spy plane deep inside Soviet
airspace. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured alive, embarrassing
the Eisenhower administration and collapsing a Paris summit called to ease
relations with Moscow. Consumer prices finished 1960 199.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1960: $100 is worth $210 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1960/