$100 in 1944 is worth $151 in 1952,
because prices increased 50.6% over that period, an average of
5.25% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$151
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
50.6%
Average inflation rate
5.25% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$151
Price difference ($100 base)
$50.57
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1944 → 1952
$151
$100 in 1952 → 1944
$66.42
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1952
Between 1944 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 50.6%, which works out to an average of
5.25% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1952: the 1944 dollar
lost 33.6% of its purchasing power over
these 8 years.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1944 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.51: $1,000 becomes
$1,506, and $10,000 becomes $15,057.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.51
$5.00
$7.53
$10.00
$15.06
$20.00
$30.11
$50.00
$75.28
$100
$151
$500
$753
$1,000
$1,506
$5,000
$7,528
$10,000
$15,057
$100,000
$150,568
$1,000,000
$1,505,682
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1952
Between 1944 and 1952, food rose the most, up 69.8%, while medical care rose the least, up 44.0%, against 50.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.25%
$151
Food
6.84%
$170
Transportation
6.19%
$162
Apparel
4.84%
$146
Medical care
4.66%
$144
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1944: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1944 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.38% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (4.86% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1944, at end
1944–1950
5.38%
36.9%
$137
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$151
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $137 by
1948, on its way to $151 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 1944 had the buying
power of $151; 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 1944 to 1952: $100 is worth $151 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1952/