$100 in 1940 is worth $216 in 1962,
because prices increased 115.7% over that period, an average of
3.56% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$216
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
115.7%
Average inflation rate
3.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$216
Price difference ($100 base)
$116
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1940 → 1962
$216
$100 in 1962 → 1940
$46.36
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1962
Between 1940 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 115.7%, which works out to an average of
3.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.46 buys in 1962: the 1940 dollar
lost 53.6% of its purchasing power over
these 22 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1940, snapping 1939’s decline
and marking the first increase since 1937. The gain was modest, and the CPI
still stood 18.1% below its 1929 peak, a reminder of how far
the recovery from the Depression’s trough had left to go even as defense
orders from Britain and France began reaching American factories. War was
already reshaping domestic policy well before it touched American soil.
Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act that September, the
country’s first peacetime draft, requiring men aged 21 to 35 to register and
authorizing the induction of up to 900,000 men a year, more than a year
before Pearl Harbor. That November, Franklin Roosevelt won an unprecedented
third term, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie after campaigning on
keeping the United States out of the war then consuming Europe and Asia. The
promise would not hold much longer: within two years, wartime demand would
push consumer prices up faster than at any point since the aftermath of
World War I. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the federal minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour, the level set the previous October under
the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Every 1940 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 2.16: $1,000 becomes
$2,157, and $10,000 becomes $21,571.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1962
$1.00
$2.16
$5.00
$10.79
$10.00
$21.57
$20.00
$43.14
$50.00
$108
$100
$216
$500
$1,079
$1,000
$2,157
$5,000
$10,786
$10,000
$21,571
$100,000
$215,714
$1,000,000
$2,157,143
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1962
Between 1940 and 1962, food rose the most, up 155.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 112.4%, against 115.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.56%
$216
Food
4.35%
$255
Medical care
3.77%
$226
Transportation
3.58%
$217
Apparel
3.48%
$212
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1940: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1940 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1940, at end
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$172
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$211
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$216
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $186 by
1951, on its way to $216 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 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $216; 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 1940 to 1962: $100 is worth $216 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1962/