$100 in 1919 is worth $175 in 1962,
because prices increased 74.6% over that period, an average of
1.30% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$175
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
74.6%
Average inflation rate
1.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$175
Price difference ($100 base)
$74.57
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1919 → 1962
$175
$100 in 1962 → 1919
$57.28
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1962
Between 1919 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 74.6%, which works out to an average of
1.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1962: the 1919 dollar
lost 42.7% of its purchasing power over
these 43 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.75: $1,000 becomes
$1,746, and $10,000 becomes $17,457.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.75
$5.00
$8.73
$10.00
$17.46
$20.00
$34.91
$50.00
$87.28
$100
$175
$500
$873
$1,000
$1,746
$5,000
$8,728
$10,000
$17,457
$100,000
$174,566
$1,000,000
$1,745,665
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1962
Between 1919 and 1962, food rose the most, up 64.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 27.9%, against 74.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.30%
$175
Food
1.16%
$165
Apparel
0.57%
$128
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.92
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$171
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$175
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $84.97 by
1941, on its way to $175 in 1962; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, 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 1919 had the buying
power of $175; 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 1919 to 1962: $100 is worth $175 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1962/