$100 in 1952 is worth $106 in 1957,
because prices increased 6.0% over that period, an average of
1.18% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$106
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
6.0%
Average inflation rate
1.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$106
Price difference ($100 base)
$6.04
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1952 → 1957
$106
$100 in 1957 → 1952
$94.31
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1957
Between 1952 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 6.0%, which works out to an average of
1.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.94 buys in 1957: the 1952 dollar
lost 5.7% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1957 at the same ratio, 1.06: $1,000 becomes
$1,060, and $10,000 becomes $10,604.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.06
$5.00
$5.30
$10.00
$10.60
$20.00
$21.21
$50.00
$53.02
$100
$106
$500
$530
$1,000
$1,060
$5,000
$5,302
$10,000
$10,604
$100,000
$106,038
$1,000,000
$1,060,377
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1957
Between 1952 and 1957, medical care rose the most, up 18.0%, while food rose the least, up 0.7%, against 6.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.18%
$106
Medical care
3.36%
$118
Transportation
1.51%
$108
Apparel
0.46%
$102
Food
0.14%
$101
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 $102 by
1954, on its way to $106 in 1957; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.3% in 1957, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $106; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1957: $100 is worth $106 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1957/