$100 in 1952 is worth $977 in 2020,
because prices increased 876.6% over that period, an average of
3.41% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$977
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
876.6%
Average inflation rate
3.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$977
Price difference ($100 base)
$877
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1952 → 2020
$977
$100 in 2020 → 1952
$10.24
What happened to prices between 1952 and 2020
Between 1952 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 876.6%, which works out to an average of
3.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2020: the 1952 dollar
lost 89.8% of its purchasing power over
these 68 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 2020 at the same ratio, 9.77: $1,000 becomes
$9,766, and $10,000 becomes $97,665.
Amount in 1952
Value in 2020
$1.00
$9.77
$5.00
$48.83
$10.00
$97.66
$20.00
$195
$50.00
$488
$100
$977
$500
$4,883
$1,000
$9,766
$5,000
$48,832
$10,000
$97,665
$100,000
$976,645
$1,000,000
$9,766,453
Inflation by spending category, 1952–2020
Between 1952 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 3007.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 171.4%, against 876.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.41%
$977
Medical care
5.18%
$3,107
Food
3.34%
$931
Transportation
3.07%
$783
Apparel
1.48%
$271
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 2020
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 1952–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$977
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $429 by
1987, on its way to $977 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $977; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 2020: $100 is worth $977 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-2020/