$100 in 1936 is worth $191 in 1952,
because prices increased 90.6% over that period, an average of
4.12% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$191
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
90.6%
Average inflation rate
4.12% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$191
Price difference ($100 base)
$90.65
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1936 → 1952
$191
$100 in 1952 → 1936
$52.45
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1952
Between 1936 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 90.6%, which works out to an average of
4.12% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.52 buys in 1952: the 1936 dollar
lost 47.5% of its purchasing power over
these 16 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
Every 1936 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.91: $1,000 becomes
$1,906, and $10,000 becomes $19,065.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.91
$5.00
$9.53
$10.00
$19.06
$20.00
$38.13
$50.00
$95.32
$100
$191
$500
$953
$1,000
$1,906
$5,000
$9,532
$10,000
$19,065
$100,000
$190,647
$1,000,000
$1,906,475
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1952
Between 1936 and 1952, food rose the most, up 127.8%, while medical care rose the least, up 63.7%, against 90.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.12%
$191
Food
5.28%
$228
Apparel
4.66%
$207
Transportation
3.73%
$180
Medical care
3.13%
$164
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1936: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1936 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1936–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1936, at end
1936–1940
0.18%
0.7%
$101
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$173
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$191
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $127 by
1944, on its way to $191 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 1936 had the buying
power of $191; 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 1936 to 1952: $100 is worth $191 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1952/