$100 in 1919 is worth $153 in 1952,
because prices increased 53.2% over that period, an average of
1.30% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$153
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
53.2%
Average inflation rate
1.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$153
Price difference ($100 base)
$53.18
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1919 → 1952
$153
$100 in 1952 → 1919
$65.28
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1952
Between 1919 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 53.2%, which works out to an average of
1.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1952: the 1919 dollar
lost 34.7% of its purchasing power over
these 33 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.53: $1,000 becomes
$1,532, and $10,000 becomes $15,318.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.53
$5.00
$7.66
$10.00
$15.32
$20.00
$30.64
$50.00
$76.59
$100
$153
$500
$766
$1,000
$1,532
$5,000
$7,659
$10,000
$15,318
$100,000
$153,179
$1,000,000
$1,531,792
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1952
Between 1919 and 1952, food rose the most, up 54.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 20.2%, against 53.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.30%
$153
Food
1.32%
$154
Apparel
0.56%
$120
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.92
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$153
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $79.19 by
1935, on its way to $153 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 1919 had the buying
power of $153; 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 1919 to 1952: $100 is worth $153 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1952/