$100 in 1952 is worth $559 in 1994,
because prices increased 459.2% over that period, an average of
4.18% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$559
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
459.2%
Average inflation rate
4.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$559
Price difference ($100 base)
$459
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1952 → 1994
$559
$100 in 1994 → 1952
$17.88
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1994
Between 1952 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 459.2%, which works out to an average of
4.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1994: the 1952 dollar
lost 82.1% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 1994 at the same ratio, 5.59: $1,000 becomes
$5,592, and $10,000 becomes $55,925.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1994
$1.00
$5.59
$5.00
$27.96
$10.00
$55.92
$20.00
$112
$50.00
$280
$100
$559
$500
$2,796
$1,000
$5,592
$5,000
$27,962
$10,000
$55,925
$100,000
$559,245
$1,000,000
$5,592,453
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1994
Between 1952 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 1163.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 206.7%, against 459.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.18%
$559
Medical care
6.23%
$1,263
Transportation
4.02%
$523
Food
3.92%
$503
Apparel
2.70%
$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 1994
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 1952–1994 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
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$559
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $158 by
1972, on its way to $559 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $559; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1994: $100 is worth $559 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1994/