$100 in 1952 is worth $138 in 1969,
because prices increased 38.5% over that period, an average of
1.93% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$138
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
38.5%
Average inflation rate
1.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$138
Price difference ($100 base)
$38.49
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1952 → 1969
$138
$100 in 1969 → 1952
$72.21
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1969
Between 1952 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 38.5%, which works out to an average of
1.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.72 buys in 1969: the 1952 dollar
lost 27.8% of its purchasing power over
these 17 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 1969 at the same ratio, 1.38: $1,000 becomes
$1,385, and $10,000 becomes $13,849.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.38
$5.00
$6.92
$10.00
$13.85
$20.00
$27.70
$50.00
$69.25
$100
$138
$500
$692
$1,000
$1,385
$5,000
$6,925
$10,000
$13,849
$100,000
$138,491
$1,000,000
$1,384,906
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1969
Between 1952 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 91.0%, while food rose the least, up 29.3%, against 38.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.93%
$138
Medical care
3.88%
$191
Transportation
1.95%
$139
Apparel
1.58%
$131
Food
1.52%
$129
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 1969
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.42% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1969 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1952, at end
1952–1960
1.39%
11.7%
$112
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$138
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $112 by
1960, on its way to $138 in 1969; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.5% in 1969, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $138; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1969: $100 is worth $138 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1969/