$100 in 1952 is worth $114 in 1962,
because prices increased 14.0% over that period, an average of
1.32% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$114
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
14.0%
Average inflation rate
1.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$114
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.96
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1952 → 1962
$114
$100 in 1962 → 1952
$87.75
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1962
Between 1952 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 14.0%, which works out to an average of
1.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1962: the 1952 dollar
lost 12.3% of its purchasing power over
these 10 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 1962 at the same ratio, 1.14: $1,000 becomes
$1,140, and $10,000 becomes $11,396.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.14
$5.00
$5.70
$10.00
$11.40
$20.00
$22.79
$50.00
$56.98
$100
$114
$500
$570
$1,000
$1,140
$5,000
$5,698
$10,000
$11,396
$100,000
$113,962
$1,000,000
$1,139,623
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1962
Between 1952 and 1962, medical care rose the most, up 40.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 6.4%, against 14.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.32%
$114
Medical care
3.47%
$141
Transportation
1.83%
$120
Food
0.64%
$107
Apparel
0.63%
$106
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–).
Decade by decade: 1952 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.39% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1952, at end
1952–1960
1.39%
11.7%
$112
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$114
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $106 by
1957, on its way to $114 in 1962; 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 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $114; the year's average CPI of 30.2 is the level
behind every 1962 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1962, matching 1961’s pace as
inflation stayed remarkably low and unemployment slowly declined from its
recession-era highs. That January, Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisers
introduced “wage-price guideposts,” non-binding targets meant to keep pay
and price increases in line with productivity growth without formal
controls. The space race delivered a milestone that February, when John
Glenn’s Friendship 7 capsule circled Earth three times, making him the
first American to orbit the planet. Markets got a scare that spring: a
dispute over U.S. Steel’s April price increase, which Kennedy publicly
pressured the company into rolling back, rattled investors, and the Dow
Jones Industrial Average fell about 5.7% on May 28, its steepest one-day
drop since the 1929 crash. The year’s gravest moment came that October,
when American reconnaissance photographed Soviet nuclear missiles in
Cuba, setting off a 13-day standoff that brought the two superpowers
closer to nuclear war than at any other point in the Cold War before the
Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. pledge
not to invade the island. Consumer prices finished 1962 205.1% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.15 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1962: $100 is worth $114 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1962/