$100 in 1938 is worth $1,781 in 2018,
because prices increased 1680.9% over that period, an average of
3.67% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$1,781
in 2018
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1680.9%
Average inflation rate
3.67% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,781
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,681
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 2018
251.107
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 2018
2.44%
$100 in 1938 → 2018
$1,781
$100 in 2018 → 1938
$5.62
What happened to prices between 1938 and 2018
Between 1938 and 2018, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 251.107.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1680.9%, which works out to an average of
3.67% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2018: the 1938 dollar
lost 94.4% of its purchasing power over
these 80 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 2018 at the same ratio, 17.81: $1,000 becomes
$17,809, and $10,000 becomes $178,090.
Amount in 1938
Value in 2018
$1.00
$17.81
$5.00
$89.05
$10.00
$178
$20.00
$356
$50.00
$890
$100
$1,781
$500
$8,905
$1,000
$17,809
$5,000
$89,045
$10,000
$178,090
$100,000
$1,780,901
$1,000,000
$17,809,007
Inflation by spending category, 1938–2018
Between 1938 and 2018, medical care rose the most, up 4605.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 473.8%, against 1680.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 2018, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.67%
$1,781
Medical care
4.93%
$4,706
Food
3.88%
$2,096
Transportation
3.39%
$1,443
Apparel
2.21%
$574
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 2018
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 1938–2018 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
2010–2018
1.78%
15.2%
$1,781
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $462 by
1978, on its way to $1,781 in 2018; 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: 2018
In 2018, prices rose 2.4% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $1,781; the year's average CPI of 251.107 is the level
behind every 2018 figure on this page.
2018 was the peak of the late-2010s expansion. Consumer prices rose 2.4%,
the fastest since 2011, with gasoline averaging $2.72 a gallon after a summer
high. Unemployment fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969, and median
household income reached $63,179. The median new home sold for about $331,800,
and a first-class stamp cost 50 cents. The federal minimum wage was still $7.25.
Trade policy became a price factor for the first time in decades. New tariffs
on steel, aluminum, and a growing list of Chinese goods raised costs for
manufacturers and some consumer products, and retaliation cut into exports of
soybeans and other farm goods.
The Federal Reserve, led from February by Jerome Powell, raised rates four
times to 2.25–2.50%. A stock-market drop of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter
led the Fed to signal a pause in early 2019. Oil fell from over $75 a barrel in
October to below $50 by December, which pulled headline inflation lower going
into the next year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 2018: $100 is worth $1,781 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2018/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 2018. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2018/