$100 in 1952 is worth $364 in 1982,
because prices increased 264.2% over that period, an average of
4.40% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$364
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
264.2%
Average inflation rate
4.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$364
Price difference ($100 base)
$264
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1952 → 1982
$364
$100 in 1982 → 1952
$27.46
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1982
Between 1952 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 264.2%, which works out to an average of
4.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.27 buys in 1982: the 1952 dollar
lost 72.5% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 1982 at the same ratio, 3.64: $1,000 becomes
$3,642, and $10,000 becomes $36,415.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1982
$1.00
$3.64
$5.00
$18.21
$10.00
$36.42
$20.00
$72.83
$50.00
$182
$100
$364
$500
$1,821
$1,000
$3,642
$5,000
$18,208
$10,000
$36,415
$100,000
$364,151
$1,000,000
$3,641,509
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1982
Between 1952 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 453.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 124.8%, against 264.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.40%
$364
Medical care
5.87%
$554
Transportation
4.53%
$377
Food
4.16%
$339
Apparel
2.74%
$225
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1982 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$311
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$364
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $126 by
1967, on its way to $364 in 1982; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $364; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1982: $100 is worth $364 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1982/