$100 in 1962 is worth $138 in 1972,
because prices increased 38.4% over that period, an average of
3.30% a year.
$100 in 1962 has
the same buying power as
$138
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
38.4%
Average inflation rate
3.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$138
Price difference ($100 base)
$38.41
CPI in 1962
30.2
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1962 → 1972
$138
$100 in 1972 → 1962
$72.25
What happened to prices between 1962 and 1972
Between 1962 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.2 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 38.4%, which works out to an average of
3.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1962 bought what
$0.72 buys in 1972: the 1962 dollar
lost 27.8% of its purchasing power over
these 10 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 1972 at the same ratio, 1.38: $1,000 becomes
$1,384, and $10,000 becomes $13,841.
Amount in 1962
Value in 1972
$1.00
$1.38
$5.00
$6.92
$10.00
$13.84
$20.00
$27.68
$50.00
$69.21
$100
$138
$500
$692
$1,000
$1,384
$5,000
$6,921
$10,000
$13,841
$100,000
$138,411
$1,000,000
$1,384,106
Inflation by spending category, 1962–1972
Between 1962 and 1972, medical care rose the most, up 58.7%, while energy rose the least, up 20.4%, against 38.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1962
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1962 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.30%
$138
Medical care
4.73%
$159
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.43%
$140
Food
3.24%
$138
Apparel
3.01%
$135
Transportation
2.62%
$130
Energy
1.87%
$120
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1962: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1962 to 1972
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 3.79% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (3.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1962–1972 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1962, at end
1962–1970
3.18%
28.5%
$128
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$138
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1962
$100 from 1962 had already become $111 by
1967, on its way to $138 in 1972; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.7% in 1970, and the smallest rise was 1.3% in 1964.
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1962 had the buying
power of $138; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1962 to 1972: $100 is worth $138 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1962 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-1972/