$100 in 1914 is worth $265 in 1952,
because prices increased 165.0% over that period, an average of
2.60% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$265
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
165.0%
Average inflation rate
2.60% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$265
Price difference ($100 base)
$165
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1914 → 1952
$265
$100 in 1952 → 1914
$37.74
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1952
Between 1914 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 165.0%, which works out to an average of
2.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.38 buys in 1952: the 1914 dollar
lost 62.3% of its purchasing power over
these 38 years.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
Every 1914 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 2.65: $1,000 becomes
$2,650, and $10,000 becomes $26,500.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1952
$1.00
$2.65
$5.00
$13.25
$10.00
$26.50
$20.00
$53.00
$50.00
$133
$100
$265
$500
$1,325
$1,000
$2,650
$5,000
$13,250
$10,000
$26,500
$100,000
$265,000
$1,000,000
$2,650,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1952
Between 1914 and 1952, apparel rose the most, up 190.0%, while food rose the least, up 181.4%, against 165.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.60%
$265
Apparel
2.84%
$290
Food
2.76%
$281
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1914: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1914 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$167
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$140
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$241
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$265
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $137 by
1932, on its way to $265 in 1952; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1952
In 1952, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $265; the year's average CPI of 26.5 is the level
behind every 1952 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.9% in 1952, down sharply from 1951’s
7.9% as the price and wage controls imposed the year before held the cost
of living in check even with the Korean War still underway. Labor strife
tested those controls that spring: to head off a strike that could have
disrupted war production, President Truman ordered the government to
seize the steel industry that April, over the objections of steel
companies fighting the price the Office of Price Stabilization had set for
their product. The Supreme Court ruled the seizure unconstitutional in
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer that June, a landmark limit on
presidential power, and steelworkers then struck for 53 days before a
settlement. Politics delivered the year’s biggest change that November:
Dwight Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson, promising to “go to Korea” to
end the war and returning Republicans to the White House for the first
time since 1933. The Cold War’s technological edge sharpened that same
month, when the United States tested the first hydrogen bomb at Enewetak
Atoll on November 1, a device hundreds of times more powerful than the
atomic bombs used against Japan in 1945. Consumer prices finished 1952
167.7% above their 1913 level. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1952: $100 is worth $265 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1952/