$100 in 1938 is worth $1,340 in 2004,
because prices increased 1239.7% over that period, an average of
4.01% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$1,340
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1239.7%
Average inflation rate
4.01% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,340
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,240
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1938 → 2004
$1,340
$100 in 2004 → 1938
$7.46
What happened to prices between 1938 and 2004
Between 1938 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1239.7%, which works out to an average of
4.01% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2004: the 1938 dollar
lost 92.5% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 2004 at the same ratio, 13.40: $1,000 becomes
$13,397, and $10,000 becomes $133,972.
Amount in 1938
Value in 2004
$1.00
$13.40
$5.00
$66.99
$10.00
$134
$20.00
$268
$50.00
$670
$100
$1,340
$500
$6,699
$1,000
$13,397
$5,000
$66,986
$10,000
$133,972
$100,000
$1,339,716
$1,000,000
$13,397,163
Inflation by spending category, 1938–2004
Between 1938 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 2910.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 449.8%, against 1239.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.01%
$1,340
Medical care
5.29%
$3,011
Food
4.23%
$1,539
Transportation
3.72%
$1,117
Apparel
2.62%
$550
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 2004
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 1938–2004 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,221
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$1,340
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $315 by
1973, on its way to $1,340 in 2004; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $1,340; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 2004: $100 is worth $1,340 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2004/