$100 in 1938 is worth $237 in 1967,
because prices increased 136.9% over that period, an average of
3.02% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$237
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
136.9%
Average inflation rate
3.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$237
Price difference ($100 base)
$137
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1938 → 1967
$237
$100 in 1967 → 1938
$42.22
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1967
Between 1938 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 136.9%, which works out to an average of
3.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.42 buys in 1967: the 1938 dollar
lost 57.8% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 1967 at the same ratio, 2.37: $1,000 becomes
$2,369, and $10,000 becomes $23,688.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1967
$1.00
$2.37
$5.00
$11.84
$10.00
$23.69
$20.00
$47.38
$50.00
$118
$100
$237
$500
$1,184
$1,000
$2,369
$5,000
$11,844
$10,000
$23,688
$100,000
$236,879
$1,000,000
$2,368,794
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1967
Between 1938 and 1967, food rose the most, up 181.8%, while transportation rose the least, up 128.1%, against 136.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.02%
$237
Food
3.64%
$282
Medical care
3.53%
$274
Apparel
2.96%
$233
Transportation
2.88%
$228
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 1967
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 1938–1967 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
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$237
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $188 by
1952, on its way to $237 in 1967; 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 1967, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $237; the year's average CPI of 33.4 is the level
behind every 1967 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1967, up from 1966’s 2.9% as
Vietnam War spending kept climbing alongside expanding Great Society
programs, a combination of rising military and domestic outlays that
economists later blamed for entrenching inflation through the rest of the
decade. The minimum wage rose that February 1, to $1.40 an hour, the
first step of a phased increase Congress had set the year before. Urban
unrest reached a peak that July, when days of rioting left 26 dead in
Newark and 43 dead in Detroit, the deadliest of that summer’s roughly 160
disturbances; Johnson responded by forming the Kerner Commission to study
the causes of the unrest. The Supreme Court gained its first Black
justice that year too: the Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall on August
30, and he was sworn in that October after serving as U.S. Solicitor
General and, before that, as the lead attorney in Brown v. Board of
Education. Consumer prices finished 1967 237.4% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1967: $100 is worth $237 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1967/