$100 in 1918 is worth $175 in 1952,
because prices increased 75.5% over that period, an average of
1.67% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$175
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
75.5%
Average inflation rate
1.67% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$175
Price difference ($100 base)
$75.50
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1918 → 1952
$175
$100 in 1952 → 1918
$56.98
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1952
Between 1918 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 75.5%, which works out to an average of
1.67% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1952: the 1918 dollar
lost 43.0% of its purchasing power over
these 34 years.
1918 brought the steepest annual price increase the CPI had recorded:
consumer prices rose 18.0% for the year, edging out 1917’s already sharp
17.4% as the economy stayed at full wartime mobilization for most of the
year. A first-class stamp cost 3 cents, up from 2 cents the previous
November under the War Revenue Act’s wartime tax increases. The war itself
ended on November 11, when Germany signed an armistice with the Allied
powers after more than four years of fighting in Europe, but the inflation
built up over a year and a half of mobilization did not disappear along with
the fighting. The bigger public health story that year was the influenza
pandemic that reached the U.S. in a mild spring wave and then returned that
fall in a far deadlier form, eventually killing roughly 675,000 Americans,
more than the country’s combat losses in the war. It hit factories, docks,
and shops alongside households, adding disruption to an economy already
strained by wartime demand. Prices would keep climbing even after the
armistice, into the postwar surge of 1919.
Every 1918 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.75: $1,000 becomes
$1,755, and $10,000 becomes $17,550.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.75
$5.00
$8.77
$10.00
$17.55
$20.00
$35.10
$50.00
$87.75
$100
$175
$500
$877
$1,000
$1,755
$5,000
$8,775
$10,000
$17,550
$100,000
$175,497
$1,000,000
$1,754,967
Inflation by spending category, 1918–1952
Between 1918 and 1952, food rose the most, up 71.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 59.3%, against 75.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.67%
$175
Food
1.61%
$172
Apparel
1.38%
$159
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1918: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1918 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.09% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1918–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1918, at end
1918–1920
15.09%
32.5%
$132
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$111
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$92.72
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$160
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$175
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $88.74 by
1934, on its way to $175 in 1952; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, 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 1918 had the buying
power of $175; 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 1918 to 1952: $100 is worth $175 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1952/