$100 in 1953 is worth $113 in 1962,
because prices increased 13.1% over that period, an average of
1.38% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
13.1%
Average inflation rate
1.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.11
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1953 → 1962
$113
$100 in 1962 → 1953
$88.41
What happened to prices between 1953 and 1962
Between 1953 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 13.1%, which works out to an average of
1.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1962: the 1953 dollar
lost 11.6% of its purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
Every 1953 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,131, and $10,000 becomes $11,311.
Amount in 1953
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.13
$5.00
$5.66
$10.00
$11.31
$20.00
$22.62
$50.00
$56.55
$100
$113
$500
$566
$1,000
$1,131
$5,000
$5,655
$10,000
$11,311
$100,000
$113,109
$1,000,000
$1,131,086
Inflation by spending category, 1953–1962
Between 1953 and 1962, medical care rose the most, up 35.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 7.4%, against 13.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.38%
$113
Medical care
3.46%
$136
Transportation
1.68%
$116
Food
0.87%
$108
Apparel
0.80%
$107
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1953: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1953 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.48% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1953–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1953, at end
1953–1960
1.48%
10.9%
$111
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$113
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $105 by
1957, on its way to $113 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 1953 had the buying
power of $113; 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 1953 to 1962: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1962/