$100 in 1913 is worth $305 in 1962,
because prices increased 205.1% over that period, an average of
2.30% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$305
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
205.1%
Average inflation rate
2.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$305
Price difference ($100 base)
$205
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1913 → 1962
$305
$100 in 1962 → 1913
$32.78
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1962
Between 1913 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 205.1%, which works out to an average of
2.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.33 buys in 1962: the 1913 dollar
lost 67.2% of its purchasing power over
these 49 years.
1913 is where this site’s price history begins, because it’s where the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ own consumer price data begins. The CPI wasn’t published in real time back then;
the BLS built the earliest index retroactively from retail price records collected starting
in 1913, which makes every dollar figure on this site ultimately anchored to that year’s
prices. It was also the year the machinery of modern federal economic policy was built. The
16th Amendment, ratified in February, cleared the constitutional path for a federal income
tax, and the Revenue Act that followed in October imposed a top rate of just 7% on income
above $500,000, a narrow tax that would later be reshaped into the broad-based system that
funds the government today. In December, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating
the central bank that would eventually take on fighting inflation as one of its core jobs,
including the 19%-plus interest rates it deployed against the 1970s and early 1980s
price surge. Consumer life in 1913 was correspondingly simple by later
standards: a first-class stamp cost 2 cents, a price that held from 1885 all the way to
1917, and the Ford Motor Company introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park
plant that year, a manufacturing breakthrough that would spend the next decade driving down
the cost of a car faster than prices elsewhere were rising.
Every 1913 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 3.05: $1,000 becomes
$3,051, and $10,000 becomes $30,505.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1962
$1.00
$3.05
$5.00
$15.25
$10.00
$30.51
$20.00
$61.01
$50.00
$153
$100
$305
$500
$1,525
$1,000
$3,051
$5,000
$15,253
$10,000
$30,505
$100,000
$305,051
$1,000,000
$3,050,505
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1962
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.30%
$305
Food
2.31%
$306
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1913: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), apparel (1914–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1913 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$169
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$141
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$243
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$299
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$305
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $145 by
1937, on its way to $305 in 1962; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1962
In 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $305; the year's average CPI of 30.2 is the level
behind every 1962 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1962, matching 1961’s pace as
inflation stayed remarkably low and unemployment slowly declined from its
recession-era highs. That January, Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisers
introduced “wage-price guideposts,” non-binding targets meant to keep pay
and price increases in line with productivity growth without formal
controls. The space race delivered a milestone that February, when John
Glenn’s Friendship 7 capsule circled Earth three times, making him the
first American to orbit the planet. Markets got a scare that spring: a
dispute over U.S. Steel’s April price increase, which Kennedy publicly
pressured the company into rolling back, rattled investors, and the Dow
Jones Industrial Average fell about 5.7% on May 28, its steepest one-day
drop since the 1929 crash. The year’s gravest moment came that October,
when American reconnaissance photographed Soviet nuclear missiles in
Cuba, setting off a 13-day standoff that brought the two superpowers
closer to nuclear war than at any other point in the Cold War before the
Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. pledge
not to invade the island. Consumer prices finished 1962 205.1% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.15 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1962: $100 is worth $305 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1962/