$100 in 1952 is worth $629 in 1999,
because prices increased 528.7% over that period, an average of
3.99% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$629
in 1999
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
528.7%
Average inflation rate
3.99% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$629
Price difference ($100 base)
$529
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 1999
166.6
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 1999
2.21%
$100 in 1952 → 1999
$629
$100 in 1999 → 1952
$15.91
What happened to prices between 1952 and 1999
Between 1952 and 1999, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 166.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 528.7%, which works out to an average of
3.99% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1999: the 1952 dollar
lost 84.1% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 1999 at the same ratio, 6.29: $1,000 becomes
$6,287, and $10,000 becomes $62,868.
Amount in 1952
Value in 1999
$1.00
$6.29
$5.00
$31.43
$10.00
$62.87
$20.00
$126
$50.00
$314
$100
$629
$500
$3,143
$1,000
$6,287
$5,000
$31,434
$10,000
$62,868
$100,000
$628,679
$1,000,000
$6,286,792
Inflation by spending category, 1952–1999
Between 1952 and 1999, medical care rose the most, up 1400.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 201.8%, against 528.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 1999, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.99%
$629
Medical care
5.93%
$1,501
Food
3.78%
$572
Transportation
3.74%
$562
Apparel
2.38%
$302
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 1999
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 1952–1999 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
1990–1999
2.73%
27.5%
$629
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $215 by
1976, on its way to $629 in 1999; 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: 1999
In 1999, prices rose 2.2% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $629; the year's average CPI of 166.6 is the level
behind every 1999 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $40,700 in 1999, gas averaged $1.17 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $161,000. Inflation ran at 2.2% for the year, ticking back up from 1998’s decade low
as oil prices recovered from their collapse. The decade closed with two changes to the financial
system that would shape the one after it: on January 1, the euro launched as an accounting
currency across 11 European countries, trading alongside national currencies like the French
franc and German mark ahead of physical cash in 2002, and in November, Congress passed the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, tearing down the Depression-era wall between commercial banks, investment
banks, and insurers. Stock markets, meanwhile, were absorbed in a boom of their own: the Nasdaq
surged through the year on soaring internet-stock valuations, and the Federal Reserve raised
interest rates three times in the second half of 1999 partly to cool the exuberance, even as it
pumped extra liquidity into the banking system to guard against any disruption from the Y2K
rollover. A first-class stamp cost 33 cents. Inflation had spent the decade falling from 1990’s
5.4% peak to averages closer to 2-3%, and 1999 closed it out almost exactly where the 1990s as a
whole had settled.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 1999: $100 is worth $629 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1999/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 1999. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-1999/