$100 in 1952 is worth $392 in 1984,
because prices increased 292.1% over that period, an average of
4.36% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$392
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
292.1%
Average inflation rate
4.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$392
Price difference ($100 base)
$292
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1952 → 1984
$392
$100 in 1984 → 1952
$25.51
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1984
Between 1952 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 292.1%, which works out to an average of
4.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.26 buys in 1984: the 1952 dollar
lost 74.5% of its purchasing power over
these 32 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 1984 at the same ratio, 3.92: $1,000 becomes
$3,921, and $10,000 becomes $39,208.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1984
$1.00
$3.92
$5.00
$19.60
$10.00
$39.21
$20.00
$78.42
$50.00
$196
$100
$392
$500
$1,960
$1,000
$3,921
$5,000
$19,604
$10,000
$39,208
$100,000
$392,075
$1,000,000
$3,920,755
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1984
Between 1952 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 539.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 134.7%, against 292.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.36%
$392
Medical care
5.97%
$640
Transportation
4.46%
$404
Food
4.08%
$360
Apparel
2.70%
$235
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 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1952–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$392
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $131 by
1968, on its way to $392 in 1984; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $392; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1984: $100 is worth $392 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1984/