$100 in 1938 is worth $706 in 1983,
because prices increased 606.4% over that period, an average of
4.44% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$706
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
606.4%
Average inflation rate
4.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$706
Price difference ($100 base)
$606
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1938 → 1983
$706
$100 in 1983 → 1938
$14.16
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1983
Between 1938 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 606.4%, which works out to an average of
4.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1983: the 1938 dollar
lost 85.8% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 1983 at the same ratio, 7.06: $1,000 becomes
$7,064, and $10,000 becomes $70,638.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1983
$1.00
$7.06
$5.00
$35.32
$10.00
$70.64
$20.00
$141
$50.00
$353
$100
$706
$500
$3,532
$1,000
$7,064
$5,000
$35,319
$10,000
$70,638
$100,000
$706,383
$1,000,000
$7,063,830
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1983
Between 1938 and 1983, medical care rose the most, up 876.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 357.5%, against 606.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.44%
$706
Medical care
5.19%
$977
Food
4.79%
$821
Transportation
4.35%
$680
Apparel
3.44%
$458
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 1983
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 1938–1983 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
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$706
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $210 by
1960, on its way to $706 in 1983; 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: 1983
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $706; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1983: $100 is worth $706 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1983/