$100 in 1962 is worth $625 in 2004,
because prices increased 525.5% over that period, an average of
4.46% a year.
$100 in 1962 has
the same buying power as
$625
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
525.5%
Average inflation rate
4.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$625
Price difference ($100 base)
$525
CPI in 1962
30.2
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1962 → 2004
$625
$100 in 2004 → 1962
$15.99
What happened to prices between 1962 and 2004
Between 1962 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.2 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 525.5%, which works out to an average of
4.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1962 bought what
$0.16 buys in 2004: the 1962 dollar
lost 84.0% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 2004 at the same ratio, 6.25: $1,000 becomes
$6,255, and $10,000 becomes $62,550.
Amount in 1962
Value in 2004
$1.00
$6.25
$5.00
$31.27
$10.00
$62.55
$20.00
$125
$50.00
$313
$100
$625
$500
$3,127
$1,000
$6,255
$5,000
$31,275
$10,000
$62,550
$100,000
$625,497
$1,000,000
$6,254,967
Inflation by spending category, 1962–2004
Between 1962 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 1219.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 160.0%, against 525.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1962
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1962 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.46%
$625
Medical care
6.34%
$1,320
Energy
4.63%
$670
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.46%
$626
Food
4.39%
$608
Transportation
4.05%
$530
Apparel
2.30%
$260
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1962: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1962 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1962–2004 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1962, at end
1962–1970
3.18%
28.5%
$128
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$273
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$433
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$570
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$625
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1962
$100 from 1962 had already become $320 by
1982, on its way to $625 in 2004; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 1.3% in 1964.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1962 had the buying
power of $625; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1962 to 2004: $100 is worth $625 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1962 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2004/