$100 in 1926 is worth $171 in 1962,
because prices increased 70.6% over that period, an average of
1.50% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$171
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
70.6%
Average inflation rate
1.50% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$171
Price difference ($100 base)
$70.62
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1926 → 1962
$171
$100 in 1962 → 1926
$58.61
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1962
Between 1926 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 70.6%, which works out to an average of
1.50% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1962: the 1926 dollar
lost 41.4% of its purchasing power over
these 36 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
Every 1926 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.71: $1,000 becomes
$1,706, and $10,000 becomes $17,062.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.71
$5.00
$8.53
$10.00
$17.06
$20.00
$34.12
$50.00
$85.31
$100
$171
$500
$853
$1,000
$1,706
$5,000
$8,531
$10,000
$17,062
$100,000
$170,621
$1,000,000
$1,706,215
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1962
Between 1926 and 1962, food rose the most, up 80.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 78.8%, against 70.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.50%
$171
Food
1.65%
$180
Apparel
1.63%
$179
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1926: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1926 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 1926–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$79.10
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$136
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$167
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$171
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $99.44 by
1944, on its way to $171 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 1926 had the buying
power of $171; 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 1926 to 1962: $100 is worth $171 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1962/