$100 in 1952 is worth $810 in 2009,
because prices increased 709.6% over that period, an average of
3.74% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$810
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
709.6%
Average inflation rate
3.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$810
Price difference ($100 base)
$710
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1952 → 2009
$810
$100 in 2009 → 1952
$12.35
What happened to prices between 1952 and 2009
Between 1952 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 709.6%, which works out to an average of
3.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2009: the 1952 dollar
lost 87.6% of its purchasing power over
these 57 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 2009 at the same ratio, 8.10: $1,000 becomes
$8,096, and $10,000 becomes $80,957.
Amount in 1952
Value in 2009
$1.00
$8.10
$5.00
$40.48
$10.00
$80.96
$20.00
$162
$50.00
$405
$100
$810
$500
$4,048
$1,000
$8,096
$5,000
$40,479
$10,000
$80,957
$100,000
$809,574
$1,000,000
$8,095,736
Inflation by spending category, 1952–2009
Between 1952 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 2149.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 176.0%, against 709.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.74%
$810
Medical care
5.61%
$2,249
Food
3.62%
$759
Transportation
3.47%
$697
Apparel
1.80%
$276
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 2009
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 1952–2009 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$650
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$810
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $311 by
1980, on its way to $810 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $810; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 2009: $100 is worth $810 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-2009/