$100 in 1920 is worth $151 in 1962,
because prices increased 51.0% over that period, an average of
0.99% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$151
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
51.0%
Average inflation rate
0.99% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$151
Price difference ($100 base)
$51.00
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1920 → 1962
$151
$100 in 1962 → 1920
$66.23
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1962
Between 1920 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 51.0%, which works out to an average of
0.99% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1962: the 1920 dollar
lost 33.8% of its purchasing power over
these 42 years.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1920 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.51: $1,000 becomes
$1,510, and $10,000 becomes $15,100.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.51
$5.00
$7.55
$10.00
$15.10
$20.00
$30.20
$50.00
$75.50
$100
$151
$500
$755
$1,000
$1,510
$5,000
$7,550
$10,000
$15,100
$100,000
$151,000
$1,000,000
$1,510,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1962
Between 1920 and 1962, food rose the most, up 45.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 7.4%, against 51.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.99%
$151
Food
0.90%
$146
Apparel
0.17%
$107
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1920: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1920 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$70.00
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$121
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$148
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$151
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $70.00 by
1940, on its way to $151 in 1962; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, 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 1920 had the buying
power of $151; 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 1920 to 1962: $100 is worth $151 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1962/