$100 in 1962 is worth $897 in 2021,
because prices increased 797.3% over that period, an average of
3.79% a year.
$100 in 1962 has
the same buying power as
$897
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
797.3%
Average inflation rate
3.79% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$897
Price difference ($100 base)
$797
CPI in 1962
30.2
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1962 → 2021
$897
$100 in 2021 → 1962
$11.15
What happened to prices between 1962 and 2021
Between 1962 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.2 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 797.3%, which works out to an average of
3.79% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1962 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2021: the 1962 dollar
lost 88.9% of its purchasing power over
these 59 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 2021 at the same ratio, 8.97: $1,000 becomes
$8,973, and $10,000 becomes $89,725.
Amount in 1962
Value in 2021
$1.00
$8.97
$5.00
$44.86
$10.00
$89.73
$20.00
$179
$50.00
$449
$100
$897
$500
$4,486
$1,000
$8,973
$5,000
$44,863
$10,000
$89,725
$100,000
$897,252
$1,000,000
$8,972,517
Inflation by spending category, 1962–2021
Between 1962 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 2135.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 161.3%, against 797.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1962
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1962 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.79%
$897
Medical care
5.41%
$2,235
Energy
4.07%
$1,055
Food
3.81%
$908
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.76%
$883
Transportation
3.47%
$749
Apparel
1.64%
$261
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1962: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1962 to 2021
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 1962–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$897
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1962
$100 from 1962 had already become $465 by
1992, on its way to $897 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1962 had the buying
power of $897; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1962 to 2021: $100 is worth $897 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1962 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2021/