Finance & business
US Inflation Calculator
Enter a dollar amount and two years to see what that money is worth after inflation. This calculator uses the official Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with annual-average values from 1913 through 2025 built right into the page. Inflation steadily erodes the purchasing power of the dollar — a hundred dollars in your grandparents' day bought far more than a hundred dollars buys today — and this tool quantifies exactly how much. Use it to compare historical prices, set salary or rent expectations, plan retirement savings, or simply understand how the cost of living has changed over your lifetime. It runs entirely in your browser and shows the CPI figures it used.
Adjust for inflation
adjusted for inflation
Based on annual-average CPI-U (BLS). Figures are estimates for general information, not financial advice.
How the inflation calculator works
Inflation is measured by tracking the price of a fixed "basket" of goods and services over time. The CPI-U records the average price level each year; dividing one year's index by another tells you how much prices rose or fell in between. To restate an amount in another year's dollars, you simply scale it by the ratio of the two index values.
inflation adjustment formula
Adjusted = Amount × (CPIend ÷ CPIstart) Total change % = (CPIend ÷ CPIstart − 1) × 100 Avg annual % = (CPIend ÷ CPIstart)^(1 ÷ years) − 1CPI = annual-average Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers years = end year − start year
The average annual rate is the compound (geometric) rate, which is why a 50% total rise over many years works out to only a low single-digit yearly figure.
Notes & assumptions
- Uses annual-average CPI-U values, not month-specific or seasonally adjusted figures.
- Reflects the nationwide urban average; your personal inflation may differ by region and spending.
- Historical CPI data is final; the most recent year may be revised by the BLS.
Worked example
Suppose you want to know what $100 in the year 2000 is worth in 2024. The annual-average CPI-U was about 172.2 in 2000 and about 313.7 in 2024. The calculation is $100 × (313.7 ÷ 172.2) ≈ $182. In other words, you'd need roughly $182 today to buy what $100 bought at the start of the millennium — a total price increase of about 82%, or an average of around 2.5% per year compounded. Flip the years to see the reverse: what a recent amount would have been worth in older dollars.
What steady inflation does to $100
The table below shows the purchasing power of $100 after 10, 20, 30 and 40 years at three constant annual inflation rates. These are illustrative scenarios, not historical claims: actual US inflation has swung widely from year to year, though the long-run compound average of the CPI-U since 1913 works out to roughly 3% a year. Each value is computed as 100 ÷ (1 + rate)years, the compound-decay mirror of the adjustment formula above.
| Years ahead | 2% per year | 3% per year | 4% per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 years | $82.03 | $74.41 | $67.56 |
| 20 years | $67.30 | $55.37 | $45.64 |
| 30 years | $55.21 | $41.20 | $30.83 |
| 40 years | $45.29 | $30.66 | $20.83 |
Two things stand out. First, small rate differences compound into large gaps: over 40 years, 4% inflation leaves less than half the purchasing power that 2% does ($20.83 vs $45.29). Second, halving times are shorter than intuition suggests. At a constant 2%, money loses half its purchasing power in about 35 years; at 3% it takes about 23 years; at 4% only about 18. That is why long-horizon plans treat inflation as a first-order input rather than a rounding error.
Real vs nominal: what a return is actually worth
A nominal return is the raw percentage your money grows. A real return is what remains after inflation. Subtracting the inflation rate from the return is close but not exact; the correct calculation divides the growth factors:
real return formula
Real return = (1 + nominal) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1Example: a 5% nominal return during a year of 3% inflation gives (1.05 ÷ 1.03) − 1 ≈ 1.94% real, a touch under the 2% the subtraction shortcut suggests. The gap looks trivial for one year but compounds over long horizons: $10,000 growing at 5% nominal for 20 years becomes about $26,533 on paper, yet deflated at 3% a year it buys what roughly $14,691 buys today. The account statement shows the first number; your cost of living reflects the second.
The same arithmetic explains why idle cash loses ground. A savings account paying 1% during 3% inflation has a real return of about −1.94% per year, so the balance grows while its purchasing power shrinks.
Why your personal inflation rate differs from the headline
The CPI-U weights each spending category by what an average urban household buys, and shelter carries the largest weight in that basket, with transportation, food and medical care making up much of the rest. Your own basket almost certainly differs from the average, so your effective inflation rate does too.
- Renters in expensive metros often experience inflation above the headline figure, because shelter is both their largest expense and one of the stickier categories.
- Households with heavy medical or tuition costs tend to run hotter than average, since those categories have outpaced the overall index for long stretches.
- Homeowners with a fixed-rate mortgage have locked in the price of their largest line item, so their lived inflation can run well below the published rate.
- Frequent drivers feel energy swings sharply; gasoline is volatile and can dominate a personal budget in the short run even though its weight in the index is modest.
The calculator answers the general question of what happened to the overall price level. For budgeting, note which categories dominate your own spending and tilt the result up or down accordingly.
Frequently asked questions
What is the CPI and where does this data come from?
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the average change over time in the prices urban consumers pay for a basket of goods and services — food, housing, transportation, medical care and more. This tool uses the CPI-U (for All Urban Consumers) annual-average values published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, covering 1913 through 2025. The index is set so that the 1982–1984 average equals 100, which is why older years have much smaller index numbers.
Why does my answer differ slightly from other calculators?
Small differences usually come from which CPI figure is used. This calculator uses annual averages, while some tools use a specific month (often the latest available), and a few use a different index such as the CPI-W or a chained CPI. Rounding and the exact data revision also matter. For year-to-year comparisons, the annual average is the most stable and widely cited choice.
What does "average annual inflation" mean here?
It is the compound annual growth rate of prices between your two years — the steady yearly rate that, applied each year, would turn the start-year price level into the end-year level. Because inflation compounds, this geometric average is lower than simply dividing the total percentage change by the number of years. It's the same kind of figure economists quote when they say inflation "averaged about 3% a year" over a period.
Can I go backward in time?
Yes. Set a recent start year and an earlier end year to see what a modern amount would have been worth in older dollars. The same formula applies — the calculator simply divides by a larger index, so the equivalent value comes out smaller. This is handy for understanding historical wages, prices or ticket costs in today's terms.
Does this account for my personal spending?
No. The CPI is a broad national average across typical urban household spending. Your own inflation rate can be higher or lower depending on where you live and what you buy — for instance, people who spend a large share on rent, healthcare or college tuition often experience faster price growth than the headline figure. Treat the result as a solid general estimate rather than a precise personal number.
What has US inflation averaged over the long run?
Measured by the CPI-U from 1913 through 2025, the compound average works out to roughly 3% a year. That average hides enormous variation: prices actually fell in the early 1930s, rose at double-digit rates in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and stayed closer to 2% through most of the 2010s. Long-run planning often assumes somewhere between 2% and 3%, but any single-rate assumption is a simplification of a bumpy history.
What is the difference between nominal and real dollars?
Nominal dollars are face-value amounts with no adjustment; real dollars restate those amounts in the purchasing power of a chosen base year. A salary that rose from $50,000 to $60,000 while prices rose 25% went up in nominal terms but fell in real terms, since keeping pace would have required $62,500. This calculator converts nominal amounts into real terms using the ratio of CPI-U values between your two years.