$100 in 1927 is worth $174 in 1962,
because prices increased 73.6% over that period, an average of
1.59% a year.
$100 in 1927 has
the same buying power as
$174
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
73.6%
Average inflation rate
1.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$174
Price difference ($100 base)
$73.56
CPI in 1927
17.4
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1927 → 1962
$174
$100 in 1962 → 1927
$57.62
What happened to prices between 1927 and 1962
Between 1927 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.4 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 73.6%, which works out to an average of
1.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1927 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1962: the 1927 dollar
lost 42.4% of its purchasing power over
these 35 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
Every 1927 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.74: $1,000 becomes
$1,736, and $10,000 becomes $17,356.
Amount in 1927
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.74
$5.00
$8.68
$10.00
$17.36
$20.00
$34.71
$50.00
$86.78
$100
$174
$500
$868
$1,000
$1,736
$5,000
$8,678
$10,000
$17,356
$100,000
$173,563
$1,000,000
$1,735,632
Inflation by spending category, 1927–1962
Between 1927 and 1962, food rose the most, up 86.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 83.0%, against 73.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1927
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1927 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.59%
$174
Food
1.80%
$187
Apparel
1.74%
$183
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1927: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1927 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 1927–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1927, at end
1927–1930
-1.36%
-4.0%
$95.98
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.46
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$170
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$174
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1927
$100 from 1927 had already become $103 by
1945, on its way to $174 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 1927 had the buying
power of $174; 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 1927 to 1962: $100 is worth $174 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1927 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1962/