$100 in 1952 is worth $153 in 1971,
because prices increased 52.8% over that period, an average of
2.26% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$153
in 1971
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
52.8%
Average inflation rate
2.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$153
Price difference ($100 base)
$52.83
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1971
40.5
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
$100 in 1952 → 1971
$153
$100 in 1971 → 1952
$65.43
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1971
Between 1952 and 1971, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 40.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 52.8%, which works out to an average of
2.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1971: the 1952 dollar
lost 34.6% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1971 at the same ratio, 1.53: $1,000 becomes
$1,528, and $10,000 becomes $15,283.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1971
$1.00
$1.53
$5.00
$7.64
$10.00
$15.28
$20.00
$30.57
$50.00
$76.42
$100
$153
$500
$764
$1,000
$1,528
$5,000
$7,642
$10,000
$15,283
$100,000
$152,830
$1,000,000
$1,528,302
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1971
Between 1952 and 1971, medical care rose the most, up 116.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 40.5%, against 52.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1971, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.26%
$153
Medical care
4.14%
$216
Transportation
2.29%
$154
Food
1.82%
$141
Apparel
1.80%
$140
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 1971
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 4.38% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1971 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1952, at end
1952–1960
1.39%
11.7%
$112
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$146
1970–1971
4.38%
4.4%
$153
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $113 by
1961, on its way to $153 in 1971; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.7% in 1970, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1971, prices rose 4.4% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $153; the year's average CPI of 40.5 is the level
behind every 1971 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.4% in 1971, down from 1970’s 5.7% as
the recession that started in December 1969 finally cooled demand. The bigger
economic story came that August 15, when President Nixon closed the “gold
window” that let foreign governments exchange dollars for gold, ending the
Bretton Woods system that had anchored the dollar since World War II. The
same address announced a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, the first
peacetime controls the country had seen, an attempt to break inflationary
expectations without the slower grind of tighter money. The “Nixon Shock,” as
it came to be known, let the dollar float against other currencies for the
first time and set the stage for a wage-and-price-control regime that would
run in various forms into 1973. Politically, the country lowered its voting
age that year: the 26th Amendment, ratified July 1, extended the vote to
18-year-olds, capping a campaign built on the argument that men old enough to
be drafted to Vietnam were old enough to vote for the people who sent them.
The Postal Service, independent since 1970’s reorganization, raised
first-class postage from 6 to 8 cents that May. A median household earned
$9,028 in 1971, up from $8,734 the year before, while gas held near 36 cents
a gallon and a new home sold for a median $25,200. Consumer prices stood
309.1% above their 1913 level by year’s end, still years away
from the double-digit inflation the controls were meant to prevent.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1971: $100 is worth $153 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1971/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1971. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1971/