$100 in 1952 is worth $115 in 1963,
because prices increased 15.5% over that period, an average of
1.32% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$115
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
15.5%
Average inflation rate
1.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$115
Price difference ($100 base)
$15.47
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1952 → 1963
$115
$100 in 1963 → 1952
$86.60
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1963
Between 1952 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 15.5%, which works out to an average of
1.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.87 buys in 1963: the 1952 dollar
lost 13.4% of its purchasing power over
these 11 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.15: $1,000 becomes
$1,155, and $10,000 becomes $11,547.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.15
$5.00
$5.77
$10.00
$11.55
$20.00
$23.09
$50.00
$57.74
$100
$115
$500
$577
$1,000
$1,155
$5,000
$5,774
$10,000
$11,547
$100,000
$115,472
$1,000,000
$1,154,717
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1963
Between 1952 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 44.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 7.8%, against 15.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.32%
$115
Medical care
3.39%
$144
Transportation
1.69%
$120
Food
0.73%
$108
Apparel
0.69%
$108
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 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.39% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1952, at end
1952–1960
1.39%
11.7%
$112
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$115
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $106 by
1957, on its way to $115 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $115; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1963: $100 is worth $115 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1963/