$100 in 1938 is worth $1,522 in 2009,
because prices increased 1421.5% over that period, an average of
3.91% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$1,522
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1421.5%
Average inflation rate
3.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,522
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,422
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1938 → 2009
$1,522
$100 in 2009 → 1938
$6.57
What happened to prices between 1938 and 2009
Between 1938 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1421.5%, which works out to an average of
3.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2009: the 1938 dollar
lost 93.4% of its purchasing power over
these 71 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 2009 at the same ratio, 15.22: $1,000 becomes
$15,215, and $10,000 becomes $152,154.
Amount in 1938
Value in 2009
$1.00
$15.22
$5.00
$76.08
$10.00
$152
$20.00
$304
$50.00
$761
$100
$1,522
$500
$7,608
$1,000
$15,215
$5,000
$76,077
$10,000
$152,154
$100,000
$1,521,539
$1,000,000
$15,215,390
Inflation by spending category, 1938–2009
Between 1938 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 3546.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 448.3%, against 1421.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.91%
$1,522
Medical care
5.20%
$3,647
Food
4.16%
$1,801
Transportation
3.60%
$1,228
Apparel
2.43%
$548
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 2009
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 1938–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,522
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $315 by
1973, on its way to $1,522 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $1,522; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,522 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2009/