$100 in 1938 is worth $1,051 in 1994,
because prices increased 951.1% over that period, an average of
4.29% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$1,051
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
951.1%
Average inflation rate
4.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,051
Price difference ($100 base)
$951
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1938 → 1994
$1,051
$100 in 1994 → 1938
$9.51
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1994
Between 1938 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 951.1%, which works out to an average of
4.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.10 buys in 1994: the 1938 dollar
lost 90.5% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 1994 at the same ratio, 10.51: $1,000 becomes
$10,511, and $10,000 becomes $105,106.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1994
$1.00
$10.51
$5.00
$52.55
$10.00
$105
$20.00
$210
$50.00
$526
$100
$1,051
$500
$5,255
$1,000
$10,511
$5,000
$52,553
$10,000
$105,106
$100,000
$1,051,064
$1,000,000
$10,510,638
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1994
Between 1938 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 1948.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 509.1%, against 951.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.29%
$1,051
Medical care
5.54%
$2,049
Food
4.53%
$1,193
Transportation
4.04%
$920
Apparel
3.28%
$609
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 1994
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 1938–1994 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$927
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$1,051
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $230 by
1966, on its way to $1,051 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $1,051; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1994: $100 is worth $1,051 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1994/