$100 in 1938 is worth $2,225 in 2024,
because prices increased 2124.7% over that period, an average of
3.67% a year.
$100 in 1938 has
the same buying power as
$2,225
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2124.7%
Average inflation rate
3.67% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,225
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,125
CPI in 1938
14.1
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1938
-2.08%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1938 → 2024
$2,225
$100 in 2024 → 1938
$4.49
What happened to prices between 1938 and 2024
Between 1938 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.1 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2124.7%, which works out to an average of
3.67% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1938 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2024: the 1938 dollar
lost 95.5% of its purchasing power over
these 86 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 2024 at the same ratio, 22.25: $1,000 becomes
$22,247, and $10,000 becomes $222,474.
Amount in 1938
Value in 2024
$1.00
$22.25
$5.00
$111
$10.00
$222
$20.00
$445
$50.00
$1,112
$100
$2,225
$500
$11,124
$1,000
$22,247
$5,000
$111,237
$10,000
$222,474
$100,000
$2,224,745
$1,000,000
$22,247,447
Inflation by spending category, 1938–2024
Between 1938 and 2024, medical care rose the most, up 5374.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 500.4%, against 2124.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1938
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1938 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.67%
$2,225
Medical care
4.76%
$5,474
Food
3.92%
$2,729
Transportation
3.45%
$1,854
Apparel
2.11%
$600
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 2024
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 1938–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$2,225
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1938
$100 from 1938 had already become $706 by
1983, on its way to $2,225 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1938 had the buying
power of $2,225; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1938 to 2024: $100 is worth $2,225 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1938 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1938-to-2024/