$100 in 1938 is worth $839 in 1988,
because prices increased 739.0% over that period, an average of
4.35% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$839
in 1988
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
739.0%
Average inflation rate
4.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$839
Price difference ($100 base)
$739
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1988
118.3
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1988
4.14%
$100 in 1938 → 1988
$839
$100 in 1988 → 1938
$11.92
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1988
Between 1938 and 1988, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 118.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 739.0%, which works out to an average of
4.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1988: the 1938 dollar
lost 88.1% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 1988 at the same ratio, 8.39: $1,000 becomes
$8,390, and $10,000 becomes $83,901.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1988
$1.00
$8.39
$5.00
$41.95
$10.00
$83.90
$20.00
$168
$50.00
$420
$100
$839
$500
$4,195
$1,000
$8,390
$5,000
$41,950
$10,000
$83,901
$100,000
$839,007
$1,000,000
$8,390,071
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1988
Between 1938 and 1988, medical care rose the most, up 1245.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 426.9%, against 739.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1988, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.35%
$839
Medical care
5.34%
$1,346
Food
4.66%
$977
Transportation
4.10%
$745
Apparel
3.38%
$527
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 1988
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 1938–1988 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
1980–1988
4.62%
43.6%
$839
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $214 by
1962, on its way to $839 in 1988; 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: 1988
In 1988, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $839; the year's average CPI of 118.3 is the level
behind every 1988 figure on this page.
By 1988, the economic expansion that began in the ashes of the 1981-82
recession was in its sixth year, and the Federal Reserve was watching for
signs it had run too long. Inflation rose to 4.1%, up from 3.6% the year
before, while unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1974. Alan
Greenspan’s Fed responded by raising the federal funds rate through the
year, from about 6.5% to 8.5%, trying to cool demand before prices
accelerated the way they had in the 1970s. Households still felt the
difference between this expansion and the last one: gas held near 90 cents
a gallon, almost exactly its 1987 price, and median household income rose
to roughly $27,200. The one price that moved was postage, which rose from
22 to 25 cents in April, the fourth increase of the decade but a far
gentler pace than the string of increases in the late 1970s and early
1980s. In November, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency on
the strength of the expansion, promising in his nomination speech to hold
the line on taxes. Both the boom and that pledge would run into trouble
within two years, as the Fed’s rate increases helped tip the economy toward
the 1990-91 recession.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1988: $100 is worth $839 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1988/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1988. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1988/