$100 in 1938 is worth $1,081 in 1995,
because prices increased 980.9% over that period, an average of
4.26% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$1,081
in 1995
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
980.9%
Average inflation rate
4.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,081
Price difference ($100 base)
$981
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 1995
152.4
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 1995
2.83%
$100 in 1938 → 1995
$1,081
$100 in 1995 → 1938
$9.25
What happened to prices between 1938 and 1995
Between 1938 and 1995, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 152.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 980.9%, which works out to an average of
4.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.09 buys in 1995: the 1938 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 57 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 1995 at the same ratio, 10.81: $1,000 becomes
$10,809, and $10,000 becomes $108,085.
Amount in 1938
Value in 1995
$1.00
$10.81
$5.00
$54.04
$10.00
$108
$20.00
$216
$50.00
$540
$100
$1,081
$500
$5,404
$1,000
$10,809
$5,000
$54,043
$10,000
$108,085
$100,000
$1,080,851
$1,000,000
$10,808,511
Inflation by spending category, 1938–1995
Between 1938 and 1995, medical care rose the most, up 2040.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 502.7%, against 980.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 1995, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.26%
$1,081
Medical care
5.52%
$2,141
Food
4.50%
$1,226
Transportation
4.03%
$953
Apparel
3.20%
$603
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 1995
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 1938–1995 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
1990–1995
3.12%
16.6%
$1,081
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $230 by
1966, on its way to $1,081 in 1995; 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: 1995
In 1995, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $1,081; the year's average CPI of 152.4 is the level
behind every 1995 figure on this page.
In 1995, gas averaged $1.15 a gallon, a new home cost roughly $133,900, and the median household
earned about $34,100. Inflation ran at 2.8% for the year, little changed from 1994, as the
Federal Reserve shifted from raising rates to cutting them. Having lifted its policy rate six
times the year before, the Fed judged by July that the economy had cooled enough on its own, and
trimmed rates instead, an outcome economists would later point to as a rare soft landing. The
year opened with a currency crisis: Mexico’s peso lost roughly half its value against the dollar
in a matter of weeks, and the U.S. Treasury and the IMF assembled a $50 billion rescue package,
controversial in Congress, to stabilize it and keep the crisis from spreading to other emerging
markets. Closer to home, a budget standoff between President Clinton and the Republican Congress
shut down federal agencies twice, first for five days in November and then for 21 days spanning
December into January 1996, the longest shutdown up to that point. The Postal Service raised the
cost of a first-class stamp to 32 cents in January. Low, steady inflation was about the only calm
part of 1995’s economic story.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 1995: $100 is worth $1,081 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1995/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 1995. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-1995/