$100 in 1952 is worth $101 in 1953,
because prices increased 0.8% over that period, an average of
0.75% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$101
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
0.8%
Average inflation rate
0.75% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$101
Price difference ($100 base)
$0.75
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1952 → 1953
$101
$100 in 1953 → 1952
$99.25
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1953
Between 1952 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 0.8%, which works out to an average of
0.75% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.99 buys in 1953: the 1952 dollar
lost 0.7% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
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.
Every 1952 amount converts to 1953 at the same ratio, 1.01: $1,000 becomes
$1,008, and $10,000 becomes $10,075.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.01
$5.00
$5.04
$10.00
$10.08
$20.00
$20.15
$50.00
$50.38
$100
$101
$500
$504
$1,000
$1,008
$5,000
$5,038
$10,000
$10,075
$100,000
$100,755
$1,000,000
$1,007,547
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1953
Between 1952 and 1953, medical care rose the most, up 3.6%, while food fell 1.4%, against 0.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.75%
$101
Medical care
3.59%
$104
Transportation
3.11%
$103
Apparel
-0.92%
$99.08
Food
-1.39%
$98.61
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1952: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952grew to $101 by 1953; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $101; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1953: $100 is worth $101 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1953/