$100 in 1938 is worth $1,922 in 2021,
because prices increased 1821.8% over that period, an average of
3.63% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$1,922
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1821.8%
Average inflation rate
3.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,922
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,822
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1938 → 2021
$1,922
$100 in 2021 → 1938
$5.20
What happened to prices between 1938 and 2021
Between 1938 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1821.8%, which works out to an average of
3.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2021: the 1938 dollar
lost 94.8% of its purchasing power over
these 83 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 2021 at the same ratio, 19.22: $1,000 becomes
$19,218, and $10,000 becomes $192,177.
Amount in 1938
Value in 2021
$1.00
$19.22
$5.00
$96.09
$10.00
$192
$20.00
$384
$50.00
$961
$100
$1,922
$500
$9,609
$1,000
$19,218
$5,000
$96,089
$10,000
$192,177
$100,000
$1,921,773
$1,000,000
$19,217,730
Inflation by spending category, 1938–2021
Between 1938 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 4999.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 452.5%, against 1821.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.63%
$1,922
Medical care
4.85%
$5,100
Food
3.85%
$2,296
Transportation
3.38%
$1,580
Apparel
2.08%
$552
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 2021
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 1938–2021 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,836
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,922
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $462 by
1978, on its way to $1,922 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $1,922; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,922 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2021/