$100 in 1938 is worth $214 in 1962,
because prices increased 114.2% over that period, an average of
3.22% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$214
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
114.2%
Average inflation rate
3.22% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$214
Price difference ($100 base)
$114
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1938 → 1962
$214
$100 in 1962 → 1938
$46.69
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1962
Between 1938 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 114.2%, which works out to an average of
3.22% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.47 buys in 1962: the 1938 dollar
lost 53.3% of its purchasing power over
these 24 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 1962 at the same ratio, 2.14: $1,000 becomes
$2,142, and $10,000 becomes $21,418.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1962
$1.00
$2.14
$5.00
$10.71
$10.00
$21.42
$20.00
$42.84
$50.00
$107
$100
$214
$500
$1,071
$1,000
$2,142
$5,000
$10,709
$10,000
$21,418
$100,000
$214,184
$1,000,000
$2,141,844
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1962
Between 1938 and 1962, food rose the most, up 152.9%, while transportation rose the least, up 111.0%, against 114.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.22%
$214
Food
3.94%
$253
Medical care
3.50%
$228
Apparel
3.17%
$211
Transportation
3.16%
$211
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 1962
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 1938–1962 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
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$214
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $171 by
1950, on its way to $214 in 1962; 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 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $214; the year's average CPI of 30.2 is the level
behind every 1962 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1962, matching 1961’s pace as
inflation stayed remarkably low and unemployment slowly declined from its
recession-era highs. That January, Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisers
introduced “wage-price guideposts,” non-binding targets meant to keep pay
and price increases in line with productivity growth without formal
controls. The space race delivered a milestone that February, when John
Glenn’s Friendship 7 capsule circled Earth three times, making him the
first American to orbit the planet. Markets got a scare that spring: a
dispute over U.S. Steel’s April price increase, which Kennedy publicly
pressured the company into rolling back, rattled investors, and the Dow
Jones Industrial Average fell about 5.7% on May 28, its steepest one-day
drop since the 1929 crash. The year’s gravest moment came that October,
when American reconnaissance photographed Soviet nuclear missiles in
Cuba, setting off a 13-day standoff that brought the two superpowers
closer to nuclear war than at any other point in the Cold War before the
Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. pledge
not to invade the island. Consumer prices finished 1962 205.1% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.15 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1962: $100 is worth $214 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1962/