$100 in 1952 is worth $158 in 1972,
because prices increased 57.7% over that period, an average of
2.30% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$158
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
57.7%
Average inflation rate
2.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$158
Price difference ($100 base)
$57.74
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1952 → 1972
$158
$100 in 1972 → 1952
$63.40
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1972
Between 1952 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 57.7%, which works out to an average of
2.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.63 buys in 1972: the 1952 dollar
lost 36.6% of its purchasing power over
these 20 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 1972 at the same ratio, 1.58: $1,000 becomes
$1,577, and $10,000 becomes $15,774.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1972
$1.00
$1.58
$5.00
$7.89
$10.00
$15.77
$20.00
$31.55
$50.00
$78.87
$100
$158
$500
$789
$1,000
$1,577
$5,000
$7,887
$10,000
$15,774
$100,000
$157,736
$1,000,000
$1,577,358
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1972
Between 1952 and 1972, medical care rose the most, up 123.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 43.2%, against 57.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.30%
$158
Medical care
4.10%
$223
Transportation
2.22%
$155
Food
1.93%
$147
Apparel
1.81%
$143
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 1972
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 3.79% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1972 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
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$158
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $114 by
1962, on its way to $158 in 1972; 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 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $158; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1972: $100 is worth $158 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1972/