$100 in 1920 is worth $133 in 1952,
because prices increased 32.5% over that period, an average of
0.88% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$133
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
32.5%
Average inflation rate
0.88% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$133
Price difference ($100 base)
$32.50
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1920 → 1952
$133
$100 in 1952 → 1920
$75.47
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1952
Between 1920 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 32.5%, which works out to an average of
0.88% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.75 buys in 1952: the 1920 dollar
lost 24.5% of its purchasing power over
these 32 years.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1920 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.32: $1,000 becomes
$1,325, and $10,000 becomes $13,250.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.33
$5.00
$6.63
$10.00
$13.25
$20.00
$26.50
$50.00
$66.25
$100
$133
$500
$663
$1,000
$1,325
$5,000
$6,625
$10,000
$13,250
$100,000
$132,500
$1,000,000
$1,325,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1952
Between 1920 and 1952, food rose the most, up 36.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 0.9%, against 32.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.88%
$133
Food
0.98%
$137
Apparel
0.03%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1920: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1920 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$70.00
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$121
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$133
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $69.50 by
1936, on its way to $133 in 1952; 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 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 1920 had the buying
power of $133; 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 1920 to 1952: $100 is worth $133 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1952/