$100 in 1938 is worth $462 in 1978,
because prices increased 362.4% over that period, an average of
3.90% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$462
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
362.4%
Average inflation rate
3.90% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$462
Price difference ($100 base)
$362
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1938 → 1978
$462
$100 in 1978 → 1938
$21.63
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1978
Between 1938 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 362.4%, which works out to an average of
3.90% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.22 buys in 1978: the 1938 dollar
lost 78.4% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 1978 at the same ratio, 4.62: $1,000 becomes
$4,624, and $10,000 becomes $46,241.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1978
$1.00
$4.62
$5.00
$23.12
$10.00
$46.24
$20.00
$92.48
$50.00
$231
$100
$462
$500
$2,312
$1,000
$4,624
$5,000
$23,121
$10,000
$46,241
$100,000
$462,411
$1,000,000
$4,624,113
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1978
Between 1938 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 500.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 271.7%, against 362.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.90%
$462
Medical care
4.58%
$600
Food
4.56%
$595
Transportation
3.67%
$423
Apparel
3.34%
$372
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1978 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$275
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$462
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $205 by
1958, on its way to $462 in 1978; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $462; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1978: $100 is worth $462 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1978/