$100 in 1952 is worth $101 in 1955,
because prices increased 1.1% over that period, an average of
0.38% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$101
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.1%
Average inflation rate
0.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$101
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.13
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1952 → 1955
$101
$100 in 1955 → 1952
$98.88
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1955
Between 1952 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.1%, which works out to an average of
0.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.99 buys in 1955: the 1952 dollar
lost 1.1% of its purchasing power over
these 3 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 1955 at the same ratio, 1.01: $1,000 becomes
$1,011, and $10,000 becomes $10,113.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.01
$5.00
$5.06
$10.00
$10.11
$20.00
$20.23
$50.00
$50.57
$100
$101
$500
$506
$1,000
$1,011
$5,000
$5,057
$10,000
$10,113
$100,000
$101,132
$1,000,000
$1,011,321
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1955
Between 1952 and 1955, medical care rose the most, up 9.0%, while food fell 3.1%, against 1.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.38%
$101
Medical care
2.91%
$109
Transportation
0.13%
$100
Apparel
-0.46%
$98.62
Food
-1.06%
$96.86
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 1952 had already become $101 by
1953, on its way to $101 in 1955; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 0.8% in 1953, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $101; the year's average CPI of 26.8 is the level
behind every 1955 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the first annual decline since 1949,
as a strong rebound from the 1953-54 recession delivered growth without
much price pressure; automakers and appliance makers competed hard on
price for a booming consumer market. Organized labor consolidated that
December, when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of
Industrial Organizations merged on the 5th under President George Meany,
uniting roughly 15 million workers in the AFL-CIO after two decades as
rival federations. That same day, a different kind of organizing began in
Montgomery, Alabama: four days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing
to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, the city’s Black community
began a boycott of its buses that would last more than a year and help
launch the civil rights movement’s mass phase. Markets got a scare that
September: news of Eisenhower’s heart attack on the 24th sent the Dow
Jones Industrial Average to its steepest one-day drop since the 1929
crash when trading resumed that Monday, before stocks recovered as the
president’s health improved. Consumer prices finished 1955 170.7% above
their 1913 level, essentially unchanged from where they
stood a year earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1955: $100 is worth $101 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1955/