$100 in 1960 is worth $102 in 1962,
because prices increased 2.0% over that period, an average of
1.01% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$102
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2.0%
Average inflation rate
1.01% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$102
Price difference ($100 base)
$2.03
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1960 → 1962
$102
$100 in 1962 → 1960
$98.01
What happened to prices between 1960 and 1962
Between 1960 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2.0%, which works out to an average of
1.01% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.98 buys in 1962: the 1960 dollar
lost 2.0% of its purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.7% in 1960, up from 1959’s 0.7% even
as the economy slipped into recession that April, a downturn that would
prove the shortest since World War II. The year’s defining political
moment came that November, when John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard
Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history,
decided by roughly two-tenths of a percentage point in the popular vote.
Television played a new role in the race: the first-ever televised
presidential debate that September, watched by an estimated 70 million
people, was widely seen as favoring the telegenic Kennedy. Civil rights
protest took a new form that February, when four Black freshmen at North
Carolina A&T State University sat down at a whites-only Woolworth’s lunch
counter in Greensboro and refused to leave; the sit-in tactic spread to
dozens of Southern cities within weeks. Cold War tensions flared that May,
when a Soviet missile downed an American U-2 spy plane deep inside Soviet
airspace. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured alive, embarrassing
the Eisenhower administration and collapsing a Paris summit called to ease
relations with Moscow. Consumer prices finished 1960 199.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
Every 1960 amount converts to 1962 at the same ratio, 1.02: $1,000 becomes
$1,020, and $10,000 becomes $10,203.
Amount in 1960
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.02
$5.00
$5.10
$10.00
$10.20
$20.00
$20.41
$50.00
$51.01
$100
$102
$500
$510
$1,000
$1,020
$5,000
$5,101
$10,000
$10,203
$100,000
$102,027
$1,000,000
$1,020,270
Inflation by spending category, 1960–1962
Between 1960 and 1962, medical care rose the most, up 5.4%, while energy rose the least, up 0.9%, against 2.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.01%
$102
Medical care
2.66%
$105
Transportation
1.66%
$103
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.30%
$103
Food
1.00%
$102
Apparel
0.65%
$101
Energy
0.45%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $101 by
1961, on its way to $102 in 1962; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.0% in 1961, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $102; 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 1960 to 1962: $100 is worth $102 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1962/