$100 in 1916 is worth $277 in 1962,
because prices increased 177.1% over that period, an average of
2.24% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$277
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
177.1%
Average inflation rate
2.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$277
Price difference ($100 base)
$177
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1916 → 1962
$277
$100 in 1962 → 1916
$36.09
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1962
Between 1916 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 177.1%, which works out to an average of
2.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.36 buys in 1962: the 1916 dollar
lost 63.9% of its purchasing power over
these 46 years.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
Every 1916 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 2.77: $1,000 becomes
$2,771, and $10,000 becomes $27,706.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1962
$1.00
$2.77
$5.00
$13.85
$10.00
$27.71
$20.00
$55.41
$50.00
$139
$100
$277
$500
$1,385
$1,000
$2,771
$5,000
$13,853
$10,000
$27,706
$100,000
$277,064
$1,000,000
$2,770,642
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1962
Between 1916 and 1962, apparel rose the most, up 175.6%, while food rose the least, up 170.8%, against 177.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.24%
$277
Apparel
2.23%
$276
Food
2.19%
$271
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1916: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1916 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$153
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$128
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$221
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$272
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$277
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $129 by
1938, on its way to $277 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 1916 had the buying
power of $277; 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 1916 to 1962: $100 is worth $277 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1962/