$100 in 1962 is worth $857 in 2020,
because prices increased 757.0% over that period, an average of
3.77% a year.
$100 in 1962 has
the same buying power as
$857
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
757.0%
Average inflation rate
3.77% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$857
Price difference ($100 base)
$757
CPI in 1962
30.2
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1962 → 2020
$857
$100 in 2020 → 1962
$11.67
What happened to prices between 1962 and 2020
Between 1962 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.2 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 757.0%, which works out to an average of
3.77% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1962 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2020: the 1962 dollar
lost 88.3% of its purchasing power over
these 58 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 2020 at the same ratio, 8.57: $1,000 becomes
$8,570, and $10,000 becomes $85,699.
Amount in 1962
Value in 2020
$1.00
$8.57
$5.00
$42.85
$10.00
$85.70
$20.00
$171
$50.00
$428
$100
$857
$500
$4,285
$1,000
$8,570
$5,000
$42,850
$10,000
$85,699
$100,000
$856,990
$1,000,000
$8,569,901
Inflation by spending category, 1962–2020
Between 1962 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 2108.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 155.0%, against 757.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1962
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1962 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.77%
$857
Medical care
5.48%
$2,208
Food
3.81%
$873
Energy
3.80%
$871
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.76%
$853
Transportation
3.29%
$654
Apparel
1.63%
$255
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1962: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1962 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1962–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$857
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1962
$100 from 1962 had already become $433 by
1990, on its way to $857 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1962 had the buying
power of $857; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1962 to 2020: $100 is worth $857 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1962 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2020/