$100 in 1952 is worth $849 in 2011,
because prices increased 748.8% over that period, an average of
3.69% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$849
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
748.8%
Average inflation rate
3.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$849
Price difference ($100 base)
$749
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1952 → 2011
$849
$100 in 2011 → 1952
$11.78
What happened to prices between 1952 and 2011
Between 1952 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 748.8%, which works out to an average of
3.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2011: the 1952 dollar
lost 88.2% of its purchasing power over
these 59 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 2011 at the same ratio, 8.49: $1,000 becomes
$8,488, and $10,000 becomes $84,883.
Amount in 1952
Value in 2011
$1.00
$8.49
$5.00
$42.44
$10.00
$84.88
$20.00
$170
$50.00
$424
$100
$849
$500
$4,244
$1,000
$8,488
$5,000
$42,441
$10,000
$84,883
$100,000
$848,826
$1,000,000
$8,488,264
Inflation by spending category, 1952–2011
Between 1952 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 2296.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 180.7%, against 748.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.69%
$849
Medical care
5.53%
$2,397
Transportation
3.64%
$826
Food
3.57%
$794
Apparel
1.76%
$281
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 2011
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 1952–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$823
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$849
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $364 by
1982, on its way to $849 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $849; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 2011: $100 is worth $849 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-2011/