$100 in 1923 is worth $177 in 1962,
because prices increased 76.6% over that period, an average of
1.47% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$177
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
76.6%
Average inflation rate
1.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$177
Price difference ($100 base)
$76.61
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1923 → 1962
$177
$100 in 1962 → 1923
$56.62
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1962
Between 1923 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 76.6%, which works out to an average of
1.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1962: the 1923 dollar
lost 43.4% of its purchasing power over
these 39 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
Every 1923 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.77: $1,000 becomes
$1,766, and $10,000 becomes $17,661.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.77
$5.00
$8.83
$10.00
$17.66
$20.00
$35.32
$50.00
$88.30
$100
$177
$500
$883
$1,000
$1,766
$5,000
$8,830
$10,000
$17,661
$100,000
$176,608
$1,000,000
$1,766,082
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1962
Between 1923 and 1962, food rose the most, up 98.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 70.8%, against 76.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.47%
$177
Food
1.78%
$199
Apparel
1.38%
$171
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1923: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1923 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$173
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$177
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $101 by
1943, on its way to $177 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 9.9% in 1932, 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 1923 had the buying
power of $177; 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 1923 to 1962: $100 is worth $177 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1962/