$100 in 1952 is worth $545 in 1993,
because prices increased 445.3% over that period, an average of
4.22% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$545
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
445.3%
Average inflation rate
4.22% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$545
Price difference ($100 base)
$445
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1952 → 1993
$545
$100 in 1993 → 1952
$18.34
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1993
Between 1952 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 445.3%, which works out to an average of
4.22% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1993: the 1952 dollar
lost 81.7% of its purchasing power over
these 41 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 1993 at the same ratio, 5.45: $1,000 becomes
$5,453, and $10,000 becomes $54,528.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1993
$1.00
$5.45
$5.00
$27.26
$10.00
$54.53
$20.00
$109
$50.00
$273
$100
$545
$500
$2,726
$1,000
$5,453
$5,000
$27,264
$10,000
$54,528
$100,000
$545,283
$1,000,000
$5,452,830
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1993
Between 1952 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 1106.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 207.4%, against 445.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.22%
$545
Medical care
6.26%
$1,206
Transportation
4.04%
$507
Food
3.96%
$491
Apparel
2.78%
$307
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 1993
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 1952–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$493
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$545
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $158 by
1972, on its way to $545 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $545; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1993: $100 is worth $545 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1993/