$100 in 1962 is worth $745 in 2011,
because prices increased 644.8% over that period, an average of
4.18% a year.
$100 in 1962 has
the same buying power as
$745
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
644.8%
Average inflation rate
4.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$745
Price difference ($100 base)
$645
CPI in 1962
30.2
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1962 → 2011
$745
$100 in 2011 → 1962
$13.43
What happened to prices between 1962 and 2011
Between 1962 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.2 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 644.8%, which works out to an average of
4.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1962 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2011: the 1962 dollar
lost 86.6% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 2011 at the same ratio, 7.45: $1,000 becomes
$7,448, and $10,000 becomes $74,483.
Amount in 1962
Value in 2011
$1.00
$7.45
$5.00
$37.24
$10.00
$74.48
$20.00
$149
$50.00
$372
$100
$745
$500
$3,724
$1,000
$7,448
$5,000
$37,242
$10,000
$74,483
$100,000
$744,831
$1,000,000
$7,448,311
Inflation by spending category, 1962–2011
Between 1962 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 1603.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 163.7%, against 644.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1962
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1962 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.18%
$745
Medical care
5.96%
$1,703
Energy
4.97%
$1,079
Food
4.18%
$745
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.10%
$717
Transportation
4.02%
$690
Apparel
2.00%
$264
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1962: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1962 to 2011
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1962–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$722
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$745
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1962
$100 from 1962 had already become $363 by
1986, on its way to $745 in 2011; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1962 had the buying
power of $745; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1962 to 2011: $100 is worth $745 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1962 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2011/