$100 in 1938 is worth $584 in 1980,
because prices increased 484.4% over that period, an average of
4.29% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$584
in 1980
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
484.4%
Average inflation rate
4.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$584
Price difference ($100 base)
$484
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1980
82.4
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
$100 in 1938 → 1980
$584
$100 in 1980 → 1938
$17.11
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1980
Between 1938 and 1980, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 82.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 484.4%, which works out to an average of
4.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.17 buys in 1980: the 1938 dollar
lost 82.9% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 1980 at the same ratio, 5.84: $1,000 becomes
$5,844, and $10,000 becomes $58,440.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1980
$1.00
$5.84
$5.00
$29.22
$10.00
$58.44
$20.00
$117
$50.00
$292
$100
$584
$500
$2,922
$1,000
$5,844
$5,000
$29,220
$10,000
$58,440
$100,000
$584,397
$1,000,000
$5,843,972
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1980
Between 1938 and 1980, medical care rose the most, up 627.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 315.1%, against 484.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1980, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.29%
$584
Medical care
4.84%
$727
Food
4.80%
$717
Transportation
4.23%
$569
Apparel
3.45%
$415
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 1980
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1938–1980 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$584
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $205 by
1958, on its way to $584 in 1980; 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: 1980
In 1980, prices rose 13.5% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $584; the year's average CPI of 82.4 is the level
behind every 1980 figure on this page.
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1980: $100 is worth $584 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1980/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1980. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1980/