$100 in 1952 is worth $246 in 1978,
because prices increased 146.0% over that period, an average of
3.52% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$246
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
146.0%
Average inflation rate
3.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$246
Price difference ($100 base)
$146
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1952 → 1978
$246
$100 in 1978 → 1952
$40.64
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1978
Between 1952 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 146.0%, which works out to an average of
3.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.41 buys in 1978: the 1952 dollar
lost 59.4% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1978 at the same ratio, 2.46: $1,000 becomes
$2,460, and $10,000 becomes $24,604.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1978
$1.00
$2.46
$5.00
$12.30
$10.00
$24.60
$20.00
$49.21
$50.00
$123
$100
$246
$500
$1,230
$1,000
$2,460
$5,000
$12,302
$10,000
$24,604
$100,000
$246,038
$1,000,000
$2,460,377
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1978
Between 1952 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 270.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 87.1%, against 146.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.52%
$246
Medical care
5.16%
$370
Food
3.60%
$251
Transportation
3.43%
$240
Apparel
2.44%
$187
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$246
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $119 by
1965, on its way to $246 in 1978; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $246; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1978: $100 is worth $246 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1978/