$100 in 1939 is worth $191 in 1952,
because prices increased 90.6% over that period, an average of
5.09% a year.
$100 in 1939 has
the same buying power as
$191
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
90.6%
Average inflation rate
5.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$191
Price difference ($100 base)
$90.65
CPI in 1939
13.9
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1939 → 1952
$191
$100 in 1952 → 1939
$52.45
What happened to prices between 1939 and 1952
Between 1939 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
5.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1939 bought what
$0.52 buys in 1952: the 1939 dollar
lost 47.5% of its purchasing power over
these 13 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
Every 1939 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.91: $1,000 becomes
$1,906, and $10,000 becomes $19,065.
Amount in 1939
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, 1939–1952
Between 1939 and 1952, food rose the most, up 143.2%, while medical care rose the least, up 62.1%, against 90.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1939
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1939 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.09%
$191
Food
7.08%
$243
Apparel
5.53%
$201
Transportation
4.61%
$180
Medical care
3.79%
$162
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1939: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1939 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1939–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1939, at end
1939–1940
0.72%
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 1939
$100 from 1939 had already become $129 by
1945, 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 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1952, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1939 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 1939 to 1952: $100 is worth $191 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1939 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-1952/