$100 in 1927 is worth $152 in 1952,
because prices increased 52.3% over that period, an average of
1.70% a year.
$100 in 1927 has
the same buying power as
$152
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
52.3%
Average inflation rate
1.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$152
Price difference ($100 base)
$52.30
CPI in 1927
17.4
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1927 → 1952
$152
$100 in 1952 → 1927
$65.66
What happened to prices between 1927 and 1952
Between 1927 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.4 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 52.3%, which works out to an average of
1.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1927 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1952: the 1927 dollar
lost 34.3% of its purchasing power over
these 25 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
Every 1927 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.52: $1,000 becomes
$1,523, and $10,000 becomes $15,230.
Amount in 1927
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.52
$5.00
$7.61
$10.00
$15.23
$20.00
$30.46
$50.00
$76.15
$100
$152
$500
$761
$1,000
$1,523
$5,000
$7,615
$10,000
$15,230
$100,000
$152,299
$1,000,000
$1,522,989
Inflation by spending category, 1927–1952
Between 1927 and 1952, food rose the most, up 75.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 71.9%, against 52.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1927
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1927 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.70%
$152
Food
2.26%
$175
Apparel
2.19%
$172
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1927: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1927 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 1927–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1927, at end
1927–1930
-1.36%
-4.0%
$95.98
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.46
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$152
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1927
$100 from 1927 had already become $79.89 by
1939, on its way to $152 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 1927 had the buying
power of $152; 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 1927 to 1952: $100 is worth $152 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1927 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1952/