$100 in 1962 is worth $104 in 1965,
because prices increased 4.3% over that period, an average of
1.41% a year.
$100 in 1962 has
the same buying power as
$104
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
4.3%
Average inflation rate
1.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$104
Price difference ($100 base)
$4.30
CPI in 1962
30.2
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1962 → 1965
$104
$100 in 1965 → 1962
$95.87
What happened to prices between 1962 and 1965
Between 1962 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.2 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 4.3%, which works out to an average of
1.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1962 bought what
$0.96 buys in 1965: the 1962 dollar
lost 4.1% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
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.
Every 1962 amount converts to 1965 at the same ratio, 1.04: $1,000 becomes
$1,043, and $10,000 becomes $10,430.
Amount in 1962
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.04
$5.00
$5.22
$10.00
$10.43
$20.00
$20.86
$50.00
$52.15
$100
$104
$500
$522
$1,000
$1,043
$5,000
$5,215
$10,000
$10,430
$100,000
$104,305
$1,000,000
$1,043,046
Inflation by spending category, 1962–1965
Between 1962 and 1965, medical care rose the most, up 7.2%, while energy rose the least, up 1.3%, against 4.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1962
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1962 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.41%
$104
Medical care
2.36%
$107
Food
1.71%
$105
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.36%
$104
Transportation
1.18%
$104
Apparel
1.07%
$103
Energy
0.44%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1962: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1962
$100 from 1962 had already become $101 by
1963, on its way to $104 in 1965; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.6% in 1965, and the smallest rise was 1.3% in 1964.
In 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1962 had the buying
power of $104; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1962 to 1965: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1962 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-1965/