$100 in 1929 is worth $155 in 1952,
because prices increased 55.0% over that period, an average of
1.92% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$155
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
55.0%
Average inflation rate
1.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$155
Price difference ($100 base)
$54.97
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1929 → 1952
$155
$100 in 1952 → 1929
$64.53
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1952
Between 1929 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 55.0%, which works out to an average of
1.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1952: the 1929 dollar
lost 35.5% of its purchasing power over
these 23 years.
Consumer prices were unchanged in 1929, the CPI’s annual average flat for
the second time in six years and a fitting close to a decade that began with
wartime inflation and ended in rough price stability. By year’s end the
index stood 14.5% below its 1920 peak and roughly 73% above its
1913 starting point, a reminder that even a “stable” decade
left prices well above where they had started. The stability in the cost of
living masked what was building in financial markets. The National Bureau
of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to that
August, the month the business cycle peaked, months before most Americans
noticed anything was wrong. The break came that October: panic selling hit
Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and returned even worse on Black
Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in
a single session. Billions of dollars in paper wealth disappeared within
days, and the crash marked the start of a downturn that would pull consumer
prices into their steepest sustained decline of the 20th century over the
next four years. First-class postage was still 2 cents, a price that would
hold until 1932.
Every 1929 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.55: $1,000 becomes
$1,550, and $10,000 becomes $15,497.
Amount in 1929
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.55
$5.00
$7.75
$10.00
$15.50
$20.00
$30.99
$50.00
$77.49
$100
$155
$500
$775
$1,000
$1,550
$5,000
$7,749
$10,000
$15,497
$100,000
$154,971
$1,000,000
$1,549,708
Inflation by spending category, 1929–1952
Between 1929 and 1952, apparel rose the most, up 76.1%, while food rose the least, up 73.9%, against 55.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.92%
$155
Apparel
2.49%
$176
Food
2.44%
$174
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1929: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1929 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1929, at end
1929–1930
-2.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$155
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $81.87 by
1940, on its way to $155 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 1929 had the buying
power of $155; 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 1929 to 1952: $100 is worth $155 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1952/