$100 in 1930 is worth $181 in 1962,
because prices increased 80.8% over that period, an average of
1.87% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$181
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
80.8%
Average inflation rate
1.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$181
Price difference ($100 base)
$80.84
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1930 → 1962
$181
$100 in 1962 → 1930
$55.30
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1962
Between 1930 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 80.8%, which works out to an average of
1.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.55 buys in 1962: the 1930 dollar
lost 44.7% of its purchasing power over
these 32 years.
Consumer prices fell 2.3% in 1930, a mild decline compared with what was
coming but the first sign that the summer 1929 downturn was not going to be
short. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that contraction from
August 1929, and by the time it finally bottomed out in March 1933 it would
run 43 months, the longest of any downturn in the NBER’s chronology back to
1854. Congress made the trade picture worse in June, when President Hoover
signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on more than 20,000
imported goods to some of the highest levels in a century. Trading partners
retaliated with tariffs of their own, and global trade volumes collapsed
over the next several years, deepening a downturn economists still debate
how much the tariff itself worsened. The financial system cracked that fall:
a regional banking panic culminated in the December 11 failure of the Bank
of United States in New York, at the time the largest bank failure in
American history, wiping out more than $200 million in deposits. It was the
first of four banking panics that would hit the country before 1933 was
out. Consumer prices still stood 68.7% above their 1913
starting point, but the direction had clearly turned. First-class postage
held at 2 cents, unchanged for eleven straight years.
Every 1930 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.81: $1,000 becomes
$1,808, and $10,000 becomes $18,084.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.81
$5.00
$9.04
$10.00
$18.08
$20.00
$36.17
$50.00
$90.42
$100
$181
$500
$904
$1,000
$1,808
$5,000
$9,042
$10,000
$18,084
$100,000
$180,838
$1,000,000
$1,808,383
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1962
Between 1930 and 1962, food rose the most, up 96.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 91.3%, against 80.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.87%
$181
Food
2.13%
$196
Apparel
2.05%
$191
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1930: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1930 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 1930–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1930, at end
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$83.83
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$144
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$177
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$181
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $117 by
1946, on its way to $181 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 1930 had the buying
power of $181; 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 1930 to 1962: $100 is worth $181 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1962/