$100 in 1931 is worth $199 in 1962,
because prices increased 98.7% over that period, an average of
2.24% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$199
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
98.7%
Average inflation rate
2.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$199
Price difference ($100 base)
$98.68
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1931 → 1962
$199
$100 in 1962 → 1931
$50.33
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1962
Between 1931 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 98.7%, which works out to an average of
2.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1962: the 1931 dollar
lost 49.7% of its purchasing power over
these 31 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
Every 1931 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.99: $1,000 becomes
$1,987, and $10,000 becomes $19,868.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.99
$5.00
$9.93
$10.00
$19.87
$20.00
$39.74
$50.00
$99.34
$100
$199
$500
$993
$1,000
$1,987
$5,000
$9,934
$10,000
$19,868
$100,000
$198,684
$1,000,000
$1,986,842
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1962
Between 1931 and 1962, food rose the most, up 137.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 110.5%, against 98.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.24%
$199
Food
2.83%
$237
Apparel
2.43%
$210
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1931: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1931 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$159
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$195
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$199
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $147 by
1947, on its way to $199 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 1931 had the buying
power of $199; 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 1931 to 1962: $100 is worth $199 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1962/