$100 in 1946 is worth $136 in 1952,
because prices increased 35.9% over that period, an average of
5.25% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$136
in 1952
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
35.9%
Average inflation rate
5.25% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$136
Price difference ($100 base)
$35.90
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1952
26.5
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
$100 in 1946 → 1952
$136
$100 in 1952 → 1946
$73.58
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1952
Between 1946 and 1952, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 26.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 35.9%, which works out to an average of
5.25% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.74 buys in 1952: the 1946 dollar
lost 26.4% of its purchasing power over
these 6 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1946 amount converts to 1952 at the same ratio, 1.36: $1,000 becomes
$1,359, and $10,000 becomes $13,590.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1952
$1.00
$1.36
$5.00
$6.79
$10.00
$13.59
$20.00
$27.18
$50.00
$67.95
$100
$136
$500
$679
$1,000
$1,359
$5,000
$6,795
$10,000
$13,590
$100,000
$135,897
$1,000,000
$1,358,974
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1952
Between 1946 and 1952, transportation rose the most, up 53.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 26.5%, against 35.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1952, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.25%
$136
Transportation
7.45%
$154
Food
6.38%
$145
Medical care
4.95%
$134
Apparel
3.99%
$126
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1946: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1946 to 1952
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.44% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (4.86% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1952 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1946, at end
1946–1950
5.44%
23.6%
$124
1950–1952
4.86%
10.0%
$136
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $122 by
1949, on its way to $136 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 1946 had the buying
power of $136; 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 1946 to 1952: $100 is worth $136 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1952/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1952. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1952/