$100 in 1952 is worth $1,023 in 2021,
because prices increased 922.5% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1952 has
the same buying power as
$1,023
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
922.5%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,023
Price difference ($100 base)
$923
CPI in 1952
26.5
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1952
1.92%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1952 → 2021
$1,023
$100 in 2021 → 1952
$9.78
What happened to prices between 1952 and 2021
Between 1952 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.5 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 922.5%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1952 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2021: the 1952 dollar
lost 90.2% of its purchasing power over
these 69 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 2021 at the same ratio, 10.23: $1,000 becomes
$10,225, and $10,000 becomes $102,253.
Amount in 1952
Value in 2021
$1.00
$10.23
$5.00
$51.13
$10.00
$102
$20.00
$205
$50.00
$511
$100
$1,023
$500
$5,113
$1,000
$10,225
$5,000
$51,126
$10,000
$102,253
$100,000
$1,022,528
$1,000,000
$10,225,283
Inflation by spending category, 1952–2021
Between 1952 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 3045.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 178.1%, against 922.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1952
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1952 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$1,023
Medical care
5.12%
$3,145
Food
3.34%
$968
Transportation
3.23%
$897
Apparel
1.49%
$278
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 2021
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 1952–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,023
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1952
$100 from 1952 had already become $429 by
1987, on its way to $1,023 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1952 had the buying
power of $1,023; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1952 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,023 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1952 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1952-to-2021/