$100 in 1951 is worth $116 in 1962,
because prices increased 16.2% over that period, an average of
1.37% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$116
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
16.2%
Average inflation rate
1.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$116
Price difference ($100 base)
$16.15
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1951 → 1962
$116
$100 in 1962 → 1951
$86.09
What happened to prices between 1951 and 1962
Between 1951 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 16.2%, which works out to an average of
1.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.86 buys in 1962: the 1951 dollar
lost 13.9% of its purchasing power over
these 11 years.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in 1951, up sharply from 1950’s
1.3% and the fastest increase since 1947, as Korean War buying and a
defense spending surge hit an economy still adjusting to peacetime. Much
of the jump came early in the year, before the government stepped in: the
Office of Price Stabilization imposed a general ceiling on prices January
26, and the Wage Stabilization Board froze wages soon after, the broadest
peacetime controls since the war began that June. The year’s more lasting
change came in monetary policy. On March 4, the Treasury and the Federal
Reserve signed the Accord, ending the Fed’s wartime obligation to hold
down interest rates on government bonds and freeing the central bank to
fight inflation on its own terms for the first time since 1942, a shift
that would shape Fed independence for decades. Congress raised taxes that
October to help pay for the war: the Revenue Act of 1951, signed October
20, lifted individual and corporate income taxes along with a range of
excise taxes, the third increase in taxes since fighting began in Korea.
Consumer prices finished 1951 162.6% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
75 cents an hour.
Every 1951 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.16: $1,000 becomes
$1,162, and $10,000 becomes $11,615.
Amount in 1951
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.16
$5.00
$5.81
$10.00
$11.62
$20.00
$23.23
$50.00
$58.08
$100
$116
$500
$581
$1,000
$1,162
$5,000
$5,808
$10,000
$11,615
$100,000
$116,154
$1,000,000
$1,161,538
Inflation by spending category, 1951–1962
Between 1951 and 1962, medical care rose the most, up 47.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 5.5%, against 16.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.37%
$116
Medical care
3.62%
$148
Transportation
2.26%
$128
Food
0.75%
$109
Apparel
0.49%
$105
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1951: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1951 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.45% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1951–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1951, at end
1951–1960
1.45%
13.8%
$114
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$116
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1951
$100 from 1951 had already become $105 by
1956, on its way to $116 in 1962; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.3% in 1957, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $116; 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 1951 to 1962: $100 is worth $116 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1962/