Between 1951 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1025.6%, which works out to an average of
3.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2022.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in 1951, up sharply from 1950’s
1.3% and the fastest increase since 1947, as Korean War buying and a
defense spending surge hit an economy still adjusting to peacetime. Much
of the jump came early in the year, before the government stepped in: the
Office of Price Stabilization imposed a general ceiling on prices January
26, and the Wage Stabilization Board froze wages soon after, the broadest
peacetime controls since the war began that June. The year’s more lasting
change came in monetary policy. On March 4, the Treasury and the Federal
Reserve signed the Accord, ending the Fed’s wartime obligation to hold
down interest rates on government bonds and freeing the central bank to
fight inflation on its own terms for the first time since 1942, a shift
that would shape Fed independence for decades. Congress raised taxes that
October to help pay for the war: the Revenue Act of 1951, signed October
20, lifted individual and corporate income taxes along with a range of
excise taxes, the third increase in taxes since fighting began in Korea.
Consumer prices finished 1951 162.6% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
75 cents an hour.
The headline number is an average. Individual categories moved very differently over this
period. Here is what $100 of 1951 spending costs in 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.47%
$1,126
Medical care
5.11%
$3,437
Transportation
3.44%
$1,105
Food
3.41%
$1,083
Apparel
1.51%
$289
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1951: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Long periods are sampled every 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2022
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1951 to 2022: $100 is worth $1,126 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-2022/