$100 in 1959 is worth $104 in 1962,
because prices increased 3.8% over that period, an average of
1.24% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$104
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3.8%
Average inflation rate
1.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$104
Price difference ($100 base)
$3.78
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1959 → 1962
$104
$100 in 1962 → 1959
$96.36
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1962
Between 1959 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.8%, which works out to an average of
1.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.96 buys in 1962: the 1959 dollar
lost 3.6% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
Every 1959 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.04: $1,000 becomes
$1,038, and $10,000 becomes $10,378.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.04
$5.00
$5.19
$10.00
$10.38
$20.00
$20.76
$50.00
$51.89
$100
$104
$500
$519
$1,000
$1,038
$5,000
$5,189
$10,000
$10,378
$100,000
$103,780
$1,000,000
$1,037,801
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1962
Between 1959 and 1962, medical care rose the most, up 9.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 2.9%, against 3.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.24%
$104
Medical care
3.01%
$109
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.31%
$104
Transportation
1.11%
$103
Energy
1.05%
$103
Food
1.00%
$103
Apparel
0.95%
$103
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1962
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.72% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1959, at end
1959–1960
1.72%
1.7%
$102
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$104
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $102 by
1960, on its way to $104 in 1962; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.7% in 1960, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $104; 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 1959 to 1962: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1962/