$100 in 1952 is worth $131 in 1968,
because prices increased 31.3% over that period, an average of
1.72% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$131
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
31.3%
Average inflation rate
1.72% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$131
Price difference ($100 base)
$31.32
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1952 → 1968
$131
$100 in 1968 → 1952
$76.15
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1968
Between 1952 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 31.3%, which works out to an average of
1.72% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.76 buys in 1968: the 1952 dollar
lost 23.9% of its purchasing power over
these 16 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 1968 at the same ratio, 1.31: $1,000 becomes
$1,313, and $10,000 becomes $13,132.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.31
$5.00
$6.57
$10.00
$13.13
$20.00
$26.26
$50.00
$65.66
$100
$131
$500
$657
$1,000
$1,313
$5,000
$6,566
$10,000
$13,132
$100,000
$131,321
$1,000,000
$1,313,208
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1968
Between 1952 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 79.0%, while food rose the least, up 23.0%, against 31.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.72%
$131
Medical care
3.71%
$179
Transportation
1.82%
$133
Apparel
1.33%
$123
Food
1.30%
$123
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 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.04% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1952, at end
1952–1960
1.39%
11.7%
$112
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$131
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $112 by
1960, on its way to $131 in 1968; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 4.2% in 1968, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $131; the year's average CPI of 34.8 is the level
behind every 1968 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.2% in 1968, up sharply from 1967’s
3.1% and the fastest pace in 17 years, as Vietnam War spending and a tight
labor market pushed inflation higher despite the Federal Reserve’s
earlier tightening. The year was marked by political violence: Martin
Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis on April
4, touching off rioting in more than 100 cities, and Robert F. Kennedy was
shot in Los Angeles on June 5, moments after winning California’s
Democratic presidential primary, and died the next day. Washington tried
to answer the inflation problem directly that June 28, when Congress
passed a 10% income tax surcharge, the Revenue and Expenditure Control
Act, temporarily raising taxes and cutting spending to cool an economy
overheated by war and Great Society outlays; prices kept accelerating
anyway. The cost of living rose in smaller, more visible ways too:
first-class postage climbed to 6 cents that January 7, and the minimum
wage rose to $1.60 an hour that February 1, the final step of the
increase Congress had set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1968 251.5% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1968: $100 is worth $131 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1968/