$100 in 1952 is worth $109 in 1958,
because prices increased 9.1% over that period, an average of
1.46% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$109
in 1958
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
9.1%
Average inflation rate
1.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$109
Price difference ($100 base)
$9.06
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1958
28.9
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1958
2.85%
$100 in 1952 → 1958
$109
$100 in 1958 → 1952
$91.70
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1958
Between 1952 and 1958, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 28.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 9.1%, which works out to an average of
1.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.92 buys in 1958: the 1952 dollar
lost 8.3% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1958 at the same ratio, 1.09: $1,000 becomes
$1,091, and $10,000 becomes $10,906.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1958
$1.00
$1.09
$5.00
$5.45
$10.00
$10.91
$20.00
$21.81
$50.00
$54.53
$100
$109
$500
$545
$1,000
$1,091
$5,000
$5,453
$10,000
$10,906
$100,000
$109,057
$1,000,000
$1,090,566
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1958
Between 1952 and 1958, medical care rose the most, up 23.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 2.5%, against 9.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1958, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.46%
$109
Medical care
3.56%
$123
Transportation
1.80%
$111
Food
0.85%
$105
Apparel
0.42%
$103
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
1955, on its way to $109 in 1958; 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 1958, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $109; the year's average CPI of 28.9 is the level
behind every 1958 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.8% in 1958, down only slightly from
1957’s 3.3% even as the country sank into the sharpest
postwar recession to that point, an early sign that inflation and a
shrinking economy could coexist rather than trade off against each other.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the downturn’s trough to
that April, with unemployment peaking near 7.5% that summer, the worst
reading since the 1930s. The Post Office raised first-class postage to 4
cents that August 1, up from 3 cents, the rate’s first change since 1932.
Washington answered the Soviet Union’s technological lead that summer
too: Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29,
establishing NASA, which opened for business that October 1 to compete
with the Soviet space program after the shock of Sputnik the year before.
Consumer prices finished 1958 191.9% above their 1913
level. The minimum wage held at $1.00 an hour, and first-class postage
rose to 4 cents that August, the first increase since 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1958: $100 is worth $109 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1958/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1958. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1958/