$100 in 1938 is worth $1,595 in 2011,
because prices increased 1495.3% over that period, an average of
3.87% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$1,595
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1495.3%
Average inflation rate
3.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,595
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,495
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1938 → 2011
$1,595
$100 in 2011 → 1938
$6.27
What happened to prices between 1938 and 2011
Between 1938 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1495.3%, which works out to an average of
3.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2011: the 1938 dollar
lost 93.7% of its purchasing power over
these 73 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 2011 at the same ratio, 15.95: $1,000 becomes
$15,953, and $10,000 becomes $159,531.
Amount in 1938
Value in 2011
$1.00
$15.95
$5.00
$79.77
$10.00
$160
$20.00
$319
$50.00
$798
$100
$1,595
$500
$7,977
$1,000
$15,953
$5,000
$79,766
$10,000
$159,531
$100,000
$1,595,312
$1,000,000
$15,953,121
Inflation by spending category, 1938–2011
Between 1938 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 3786.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 457.6%, against 1495.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.87%
$1,595
Medical care
5.14%
$3,886
Food
4.10%
$1,883
Transportation
3.74%
$1,455
Apparel
2.38%
$558
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 2011
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 1938–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,546
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,595
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $315 by
1973, on its way to $1,595 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $1,595; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,595 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2011/