$100 in 1933 is worth $204 in 1952,
because prices increased 103.8% over that period, an average of
3.82% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$204
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
103.8%
Average inflation rate
3.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$204
Price difference ($100 base)
$104
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1933 → 1952
$204
$100 in 1952 → 1933
$49.06
What happened to prices between 1933 and 1952
Between 1933 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 103.8%, which works out to an average of
3.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.49 buys in 1952: the 1933 dollar
lost 50.9% of its purchasing power over
these 19 years.
Consumer prices fell 5.1% in 1933, a smaller decline than 1932’s
but enough to complete a four-year slide of 24.0% from the 1929
peak. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the trough of that
contraction to March 1933, closing out the longest downturn in its
chronology, one that had run 43 months since August 1929. The bottom
arrived alongside a change in government: Franklin D. Roosevelt was
inaugurated March 4 and, within 48 hours, ordered every bank in the country
closed to halt a fresh round of runs. Congress passed the Emergency Banking
Act on March 9, letting solvent banks reopen under federal supervision, and
the panic that had been building for months broke almost immediately. The
administration moved on the currency next: Executive Order 6102, issued
April 5, required Americans to turn in most gold coin, bullion, and
certificates to the Federal Reserve, taking the country off the domestic
gold standard (formal devaluation of the dollar followed the next January).
Congress capped the year’s banking overhaul in June with the Banking Act of
1933, commonly called Glass-Steagall, which created the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation and separated commercial banking from investment
banking. Even after four straight years of falling prices, the CPI still
stood 31.3% above its 1913 level. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
Every 1933 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 2.04: $1,000 becomes
$2,038, and $10,000 becomes $20,385.
Amount in 1933
Value in 1952
$1.00
$2.04
$5.00
$10.19
$10.00
$20.38
$20.00
$40.77
$50.00
$102
$100
$204
$500
$1,019
$1,000
$2,038
$5,000
$10,192
$10,000
$20,385
$100,000
$203,846
$1,000,000
$2,038,462
Inflation by spending category, 1933–1952
Between 1933 and 1952, food rose the most, up 176.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 131.4%, against 103.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.82%
$204
Food
5.49%
$276
Apparel
4.51%
$231
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1933: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1933 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (1.06% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1933–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1933, at end
1933–1940
1.06%
7.7%
$108
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$185
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$204
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $125 by
1942, on its way to $204 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 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1952, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $204; 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 1933 to 1952: $100 is worth $204 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1952/