$100 in 1926 is worth $150 in 1952,
because prices increased 49.7% over that period, an average of
1.56% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$150
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
49.7%
Average inflation rate
1.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$150
Price difference ($100 base)
$49.72
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1926 → 1952
$150
$100 in 1952 → 1926
$66.79
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1952
Between 1926 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 49.7%, which works out to an average of
1.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.67 buys in 1952: the 1926 dollar
lost 33.2% of its purchasing power over
these 26 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
Every 1926 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.50: $1,000 becomes
$1,497, and $10,000 becomes $14,972.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.50
$5.00
$7.49
$10.00
$14.97
$20.00
$29.94
$50.00
$74.86
$100
$150
$500
$749
$1,000
$1,497
$5,000
$7,486
$10,000
$14,972
$100,000
$149,718
$1,000,000
$1,497,175
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1952
Between 1926 and 1952, food rose the most, up 68.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 68.0%, against 49.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.56%
$150
Food
2.03%
$169
Apparel
2.01%
$168
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1926: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1926 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 1926–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$79.10
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$136
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$150
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $78.53 by
1939, on its way to $150 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 1926 had the buying
power of $150; 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 1926 to 1952: $100 is worth $150 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1952/