$100 in 1938 is worth $217 in 1963,
because prices increased 117.0% over that period, an average of
3.15% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$217
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
117.0%
Average inflation rate
3.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$217
Price difference ($100 base)
$117
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1938 → 1963
$217
$100 in 1963 → 1938
$46.08
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1963
Between 1938 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 117.0%, which works out to an average of
3.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.46 buys in 1963: the 1938 dollar
lost 53.9% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1963 at the same ratio, 2.17: $1,000 becomes
$2,170, and $10,000 becomes $21,702.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1963
$1.00
$2.17
$5.00
$10.85
$10.00
$21.70
$20.00
$43.40
$50.00
$109
$100
$217
$500
$1,085
$1,000
$2,170
$5,000
$10,851
$10,000
$21,702
$100,000
$217,021
$1,000,000
$2,170,213
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1963
Between 1938 and 1963, food rose the most, up 157.0%, while transportation rose the least, up 111.6%, against 117.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.15%
$217
Food
3.85%
$257
Medical care
3.46%
$234
Apparel
3.09%
$214
Transportation
3.04%
$212
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 1963
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 1938–1963 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
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$217
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $171 by
1950, on its way to $217 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $217; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1963: $100 is worth $217 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1963/