$100 in 1952 is worth $468 in 1989,
because prices increased 367.9% over that period, an average of
4.26% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$468
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
367.9%
Average inflation rate
4.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$468
Price difference ($100 base)
$368
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1952 → 1989
$468
$100 in 1989 → 1952
$21.37
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1989
Between 1952 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 367.9%, which works out to an average of
4.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.21 buys in 1989: the 1952 dollar
lost 78.6% of its purchasing power over
these 37 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 1989 at the same ratio, 4.68: $1,000 becomes
$4,679, and $10,000 becomes $46,792.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.68
$5.00
$23.40
$10.00
$46.79
$20.00
$93.58
$50.00
$234
$100
$468
$500
$2,340
$1,000
$4,679
$5,000
$23,396
$10,000
$46,792
$100,000
$467,925
$1,000,000
$4,679,245
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1989
Between 1952 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 794.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 172.6%, against 367.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.26%
$468
Medical care
6.10%
$894
Transportation
4.11%
$444
Food
4.06%
$436
Apparel
2.75%
$273
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 1989
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 1952–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$468
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $146 by
1970, on its way to $468 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $468; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1989: $100 is worth $468 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1989/