$100 in 1925 is worth $151 in 1952,
because prices increased 51.4% over that period, an average of
1.55% a year.
$100 in 1925 has
the same buying power as
$151
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
51.4%
Average inflation rate
1.55% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$151
Price difference ($100 base)
$51.43
CPI in 1925
17.5
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1925
2.34%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1925 → 1952
$151
$100 in 1952 → 1925
$66.04
What happened to prices between 1925 and 1952
Between 1925 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.5 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 51.4%, which works out to an average of
1.55% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1925 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1952: the 1925 dollar
lost 34.0% of its purchasing power over
these 27 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1925, the CPI’s largest single-year increase
since the deflationary swings of the early 1920s, though still mild next to
the double-digit inflation of the World War I years. The country’s cultural
fault lines were on full display that summer in Dayton, Tennessee, where
high school teacher John Scopes was tried July 10-21 for violating a state
law against teaching evolution, a case that drew national press coverage and
pitted prosecutor William Jennings Bryan against defense attorney Clarence
Darrow. Real estate speculation, meanwhile, peaked in Florida, where buyers
flipped undeveloped land in the Miami area on thin down payments, driving
prices far above what the land itself could support; the bubble would
collapse the following year. Detroit reshuffled that June too: Walter
Chrysler reorganized the struggling Maxwell Motor Company into Chrysler
Corporation, the start of what would become one of the American auto
industry’s “Big Three.” First-class postage held at 2 cents for the sixth
straight year.
Every 1925 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.51: $1,000 becomes
$1,514, and $10,000 becomes $15,143.
Amount in 1925
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.51
$5.00
$7.57
$10.00
$15.14
$20.00
$30.29
$50.00
$75.71
$100
$151
$500
$757
$1,000
$1,514
$5,000
$7,571
$10,000
$15,143
$100,000
$151,429
$1,000,000
$1,514,286
Inflation by spending category, 1925–1952
Between 1925 and 1952, food rose the most, up 73.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 65.4%, against 51.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1925
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1925 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.55%
$151
Food
2.07%
$174
Apparel
1.88%
$165
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1925: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1925 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1925–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1925, at end
1925–1930
-0.93%
-4.6%
$95.43
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.00
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$138
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$151
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1925
$100 from 1925 had already become $80.57 by
1938, on its way to $151 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 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1952, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1925 had the buying
power of $151; 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 1925 to 1952: $100 is worth $151 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1925-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1925 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1925-to-1952/