$100 in 1962 is worth $1,039 in 2024,
because prices increased 938.7% over that period, an average of
3.85% a year.
$100 in 1962 has
the same buying power as
$1,039
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
938.7%
Average inflation rate
3.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,039
Price difference ($100 base)
$939
CPI in 1962
30.2
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1962 → 2024
$1,039
$100 in 2024 → 1962
$9.63
What happened to prices between 1962 and 2024
Between 1962 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.2 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 938.7%, which works out to an average of
3.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1962 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2024: the 1962 dollar
lost 90.4% of its purchasing power over
these 62 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 2024 at the same ratio, 10.39: $1,000 becomes
$10,387, and $10,000 becomes $103,871.
Amount in 1962
Value in 2024
$1.00
$10.39
$5.00
$51.94
$10.00
$104
$20.00
$208
$50.00
$519
$100
$1,039
$500
$5,194
$1,000
$10,387
$5,000
$51,935
$10,000
$103,871
$100,000
$1,038,705
$1,000,000
$10,387,053
Inflation by spending category, 1962–2024
Between 1962 and 2024, medical care rose the most, up 2299.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 184.0%, against 938.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1962
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1962 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.85%
$1,039
Medical care
5.26%
$2,399
Energy
4.14%
$1,237
Food
3.91%
$1,079
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.81%
$1,016
Transportation
3.57%
$879
Apparel
1.70%
$284
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1962: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1962 to 2024
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 1962–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$1,039
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1962
$100 from 1962 had already become $465 by
1992, on its way to $1,039 in 2024; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1962 had the buying
power of $1,039; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1962 to 2024: $100 is worth $1,039 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1962 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1962-to-2024/