$100 in 1962 is worth $122 in 1969,
because prices increased 21.5% over that period, an average of
2.82% a year.
$100 in 1962 has
the same buying power as
$122
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
21.5%
Average inflation rate
2.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$122
Price difference ($100 base)
$21.52
CPI in 1962
30.2
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1962 → 1969
$122
$100 in 1969 → 1962
$82.29
What happened to prices between 1962 and 1969
Between 1962 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.2 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 21.5%, which works out to an average of
2.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1962 bought what
$0.82 buys in 1969: the 1962 dollar
lost 17.7% of its purchasing power over
these 7 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 1969 at the same ratio, 1.22: $1,000 becomes
$1,215, and $10,000 becomes $12,152.
Amount in 1962
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.22
$5.00
$6.08
$10.00
$12.15
$20.00
$24.30
$50.00
$60.76
$100
$122
$500
$608
$1,000
$1,215
$5,000
$6,076
$10,000
$12,152
$100,000
$121,523
$1,000,000
$1,215,232
Inflation by spending category, 1962–1969
Between 1962 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 35.7%, while energy rose the least, up 9.7%, against 21.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1962
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1962 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.82%
$122
Medical care
4.46%
$136
Apparel
2.96%
$123
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.92%
$122
Food
2.79%
$121
Transportation
2.13%
$116
Energy
1.34%
$110
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 $104 by
1965, on its way to $122 in 1969; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.5% in 1969, and the smallest rise was 1.3% in 1964.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1962 had the buying
power of $122; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1962 to 1969: $100 is worth $122 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1962 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-1969/