$100 in 1915 is worth $262 in 1952,
because prices increased 162.4% over that period, an average of
2.64% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$262
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
162.4%
Average inflation rate
2.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$262
Price difference ($100 base)
$162
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1915 → 1952
$262
$100 in 1952 → 1915
$38.11
What happened to prices between 1915 and 1952
Between 1915 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 162.4%, which works out to an average of
2.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.38 buys in 1952: the 1915 dollar
lost 61.9% of its purchasing power over
these 37 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1915, the second straight year of near-flat
inflation before the wartime price surges of 1916 through 1918. The year’s
defining event had nothing to do with prices directly: a German submarine
sank the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast on May 7, killing 128
Americans and hardening U.S. opinion against Germany two years before the
country entered the war. Economically, 1915 was a turning point of a
different kind. A recession that had dragged on since 1913 began lifting as
Britain and France placed growing orders for steel, munitions, and other war
materiel with American manufacturers, and U.S. exports to the Allied powers
climbed sharply through the year. That demand would keep building through
1916, eventually pulling prices up with it. On the regulatory
side, the Federal Trade Commission opened for business in March, taking on
enforcement of the Clayton Antitrust Act that Congress had passed the
previous fall. A first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, unchanged since 1885
and still two years from its first wartime increase.
Every 1915 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 2.62: $1,000 becomes
$2,624, and $10,000 becomes $26,238.
Amount in 1915
Value in 1952
$1.00
$2.62
$5.00
$13.12
$10.00
$26.24
$20.00
$52.48
$50.00
$131
$100
$262
$500
$1,312
$1,000
$2,624
$5,000
$13,119
$10,000
$26,238
$100,000
$262,376
$1,000,000
$2,623,762
Inflation by spending category, 1915–1952
Between 1915 and 1952, food rose the most, up 187.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 184.3%, against 162.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.64%
$262
Food
2.89%
$287
Apparel
2.86%
$284
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1915: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1915 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 14.64% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1915–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1915, at end
1915–1920
14.64%
98.0%
$198
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$165
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$139
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$239
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$262
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $129 by
1933, on its way to $262 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 1915 had the buying
power of $262; 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 1915 to 1952: $100 is worth $262 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1952/