$100 in 1952 is worth $119 in 1965,
because prices increased 18.9% over that period, an average of
1.34% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$119
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
18.9%
Average inflation rate
1.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$119
Price difference ($100 base)
$18.87
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1952 → 1965
$119
$100 in 1965 → 1952
$84.13
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1965
Between 1952 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 18.9%, which works out to an average of
1.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.84 buys in 1965: the 1952 dollar
lost 15.9% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.19: $1,000 becomes
$1,189, and $10,000 becomes $11,887.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.19
$5.00
$5.94
$10.00
$11.89
$20.00
$23.77
$50.00
$59.43
$100
$119
$500
$594
$1,000
$1,189
$5,000
$5,943
$10,000
$11,887
$100,000
$118,868
$1,000,000
$1,188,679
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1965
Between 1952 and 1965, medical care rose the most, up 50.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 9.9%, against 18.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.34%
$119
Medical care
3.22%
$151
Transportation
1.68%
$124
Food
0.89%
$112
Apparel
0.73%
$110
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 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.39% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.25% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1965 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1952, at end
1952–1960
1.39%
11.7%
$112
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$119
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $109 by
1958, on its way to $119 in 1965; 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 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $119; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1965: $100 is worth $119 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1965/