$100 in 1952 is worth $110 in 1959,
because prices increased 9.8% over that period, an average of
1.35% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$110
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
9.8%
Average inflation rate
1.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$110
Price difference ($100 base)
$9.81
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1952 → 1959
$110
$100 in 1959 → 1952
$91.07
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1959
Between 1952 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 9.8%, which works out to an average of
1.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.91 buys in 1959: the 1952 dollar
lost 8.9% of its purchasing power over
these 7 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 1959 at the same ratio, 1.10: $1,000 becomes
$1,098, and $10,000 becomes $10,981.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.10
$5.00
$5.49
$10.00
$10.98
$20.00
$21.96
$50.00
$54.91
$100
$110
$500
$549
$1,000
$1,098
$5,000
$5,491
$10,000
$10,981
$100,000
$109,811
$1,000,000
$1,098,113
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1959
Between 1952 and 1959, medical care rose the most, up 28.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 3.4%, against 9.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.35%
$110
Medical care
3.68%
$129
Transportation
2.14%
$116
Food
0.49%
$103
Apparel
0.49%
$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 $110 in 1959; 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 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $110; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1959: $100 is worth $110 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1959/