$100 in 1931 is worth $174 in 1952,
because prices increased 74.3% over that period, an average of
2.68% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$174
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
74.3%
Average inflation rate
2.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$174
Price difference ($100 base)
$74.34
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1931 → 1952
$174
$100 in 1952 → 1931
$57.36
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1952
Between 1931 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 74.3%, which works out to an average of
2.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1952: the 1931 dollar
lost 42.6% of its purchasing power over
these 21 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
Every 1931 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.74: $1,000 becomes
$1,743, and $10,000 becomes $17,434.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.74
$5.00
$8.72
$10.00
$17.43
$20.00
$34.87
$50.00
$87.17
$100
$174
$500
$872
$1,000
$1,743
$5,000
$8,717
$10,000
$17,434
$100,000
$174,342
$1,000,000
$1,743,421
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1952
Between 1931 and 1952, food rose the most, up 122.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 97.7%, against 74.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.68%
$174
Food
3.88%
$222
Apparel
3.30%
$198
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1931: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1931 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$159
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$174
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $96.71 by
1941, on its way to $174 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 1931 had the buying
power of $174; 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 1931 to 1952: $100 is worth $174 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1952/