$100 in 1914 is worth $302 in 1962,
because prices increased 202.0% over that period, an average of
2.33% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$302
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
202.0%
Average inflation rate
2.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$302
Price difference ($100 base)
$202
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1914 → 1962
$302
$100 in 1962 → 1914
$33.11
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1962
Between 1914 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 202.0%, which works out to an average of
2.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.33 buys in 1962: the 1914 dollar
lost 66.9% of its purchasing power over
these 48 years.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
Every 1914 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 3.02: $1,000 becomes
$3,020, and $10,000 becomes $30,200.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1962
$1.00
$3.02
$5.00
$15.10
$10.00
$30.20
$20.00
$60.40
$50.00
$151
$100
$302
$500
$1,510
$1,000
$3,020
$5,000
$15,100
$10,000
$30,200
$100,000
$302,000
$1,000,000
$3,020,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1962
Between 1914 and 1962, apparel rose the most, up 208.7%, while food rose the least, up 200.0%, against 202.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.33%
$302
Apparel
2.38%
$309
Food
2.32%
$300
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1914: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1914 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$167
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$140
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$241
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$296
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$302
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $141 by
1938, on its way to $302 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 1914 had the buying
power of $302; 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 1914 to 1962: $100 is worth $302 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1962/