$100 in 1943 is worth $153 in 1952,
because prices increased 53.2% over that period, an average of
4.85% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$153
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
53.2%
Average inflation rate
4.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$153
Price difference ($100 base)
$53.18
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1943 → 1952
$153
$100 in 1952 → 1943
$65.28
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1952
Between 1943 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 53.2%, which works out to an average of
4.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1952: the 1943 dollar
lost 34.7% of its purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1943 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.53: $1,000 becomes
$1,532, and $10,000 becomes $15,318.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.53
$5.00
$7.66
$10.00
$15.32
$20.00
$30.64
$50.00
$76.59
$100
$153
$500
$766
$1,000
$1,532
$5,000
$7,659
$10,000
$15,318
$100,000
$153,179
$1,000,000
$1,531,792
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1952
Between 1943 and 1952, food rose the most, up 67.8%, while medical care rose the least, up 49.1%, against 53.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.85%
$153
Food
5.92%
$168
Transportation
5.48%
$162
Apparel
5.10%
$156
Medical care
4.54%
$149
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1943: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1943 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 4.86% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (4.85% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1943, at end
1943–1950
4.85%
39.3%
$139
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$153
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $129 by
1947, on its way to $153 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 1943 had the buying
power of $153; 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 1943 to 1952: $100 is worth $153 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1952/