$100 in 1938 is worth $737 in 1984,
because prices increased 636.9% over that period, an average of
4.44% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$737
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
636.9%
Average inflation rate
4.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$737
Price difference ($100 base)
$637
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1938 → 1984
$737
$100 in 1984 → 1938
$13.57
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1984
Between 1938 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 636.9%, which works out to an average of
4.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1984: the 1938 dollar
lost 86.4% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 1984 at the same ratio, 7.37: $1,000 becomes
$7,369, and $10,000 becomes $73,688.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1984
$1.00
$7.37
$5.00
$36.84
$10.00
$73.69
$20.00
$147
$50.00
$368
$100
$737
$500
$3,684
$1,000
$7,369
$5,000
$36,844
$10,000
$73,688
$100,000
$736,879
$1,000,000
$7,368,794
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1984
Between 1938 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 936.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 366.2%, against 636.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.44%
$737
Medical care
5.22%
$1,037
Food
4.77%
$853
Transportation
4.35%
$710
Apparel
3.40%
$466
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 1984
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 1938–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$737
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $210 by
1960, on its way to $737 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $737; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1984: $100 is worth $737 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1984/