$100 in 1934 is worth $225 in 1962,
because prices increased 125.4% over that period, an average of
2.94% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$225
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
125.4%
Average inflation rate
2.94% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$225
Price difference ($100 base)
$125
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1934 → 1962
$225
$100 in 1962 → 1934
$44.37
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1962
Between 1934 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 125.4%, which works out to an average of
2.94% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.44 buys in 1962: the 1934 dollar
lost 55.6% of its purchasing power over
these 28 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1934, the first annual increase since 1926;
every year from 1927 through 1933 had been flat or falling,
so the turn marked a real break after eight years without a single gain.
Currency policy did some of the work. The Gold Reserve Act, signed January
30, formally devalued the dollar by raising the official price of gold from
$20.67 to $35 an ounce, part of the administration’s deliberate effort to
reflate prices after four straight years of deflation. Financial regulation
tightened at the same time: the Securities Exchange Act of June 6 created
the Securities and Exchange Commission to police stock exchanges and enforce
disclosure rules, a direct response to the speculation blamed for the 1929
crash. The recovery was fragile and unevenly felt, especially on the Great
Plains, where drought had turned overplowed farmland to dust. Over May 9-11,
high winds lifted an estimated 350 million tons of topsoil into the air,
darkening skies as far away as Washington and New York and giving city
readers who had never seen a wheat field a first glimpse of the disaster
building in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Consumer prices stood 35.4% above
their 1913 level, still well below the 1929 peak but rising
for the first time since the Depression began. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
Every 1934 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 2.25: $1,000 becomes
$2,254, and $10,000 becomes $22,537.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1962
$1.00
$2.25
$5.00
$11.27
$10.00
$22.54
$20.00
$45.07
$50.00
$113
$100
$225
$500
$1,127
$1,000
$2,254
$5,000
$11,269
$10,000
$22,537
$100,000
$225,373
$1,000,000
$2,253,731
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1962
Between 1934 and 1962, food rose the most, up 163.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 124.8%, against 125.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.94%
$225
Food
3.52%
$264
Apparel
2.93%
$225
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1934: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1934 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$180
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$221
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$225
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $180 by
1948, on its way to $225 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 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $225; 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 1934 to 1962: $100 is worth $225 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1962/