Inflation Calculator

1. Enter a dollar amount. This can be a salary, price, savings balance, or any value you want to adjust for inflation. The amount you enter represents what something was worth in the starting year.
2. Select the starting year. Choose the year the dollar amount was current. The calculator uses CPI data from 1960 through 2024.
3. Select the target year. This is the year you want to convert to. You can go forward (what would $50,000 in 2000 be worth today?) or backward (what was $100,000 in 2024 equivalent to in 1990?).
4. Read the results. The calculator shows the inflation-adjusted amount, total cumulative inflation, average annual inflation rate between those years, and the percentage of purchasing power retained.

Example: $50,000 earned in 2000 is equivalent to approximately $87,500 in 2024, reflecting 75% total inflation over 24 years. That means a salary that felt comfortable in 2000 would need to be nearly $88,000 today to have the same real purchasing power.

The calculator uses the US Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI measures the average price change for a basket of common goods and services, updated monthly. This calculator uses annual average CPI values.

Adjusted Amount = Original Amount × (CPI in Target Year / CPI in Starting Year)

Total Inflation % = (CPI Target / CPI Start - 1) × 100

Annual Rate = (CPI Target / CPI Start)^(1 / Years) - 1

Example: $10,000 in 1990 (CPI: 130.7) to 2024 (CPI: 314.2):

Adjusted = $10,000 × (314.2 / 130.7) = $24,041
Total Inflation = (314.2 / 130.7 - 1) × 100 = 140.4%
Annual Rate = (314.2 / 130.7)^(1/34) - 1 = 2.5% per year

Notable US inflation periods that show up in the data:

Small annual inflation rates compound into large purchasing power losses. At 3% inflation, prices double roughly every 24 years. At 7% (the 2021 peak), prices double in just 10 years. Here is what $100,000 is worth over time at different inflation rates:

The practical takeaway: cash held in a savings account at 0.5% interest loses real value when inflation exceeds that rate. Assets that historically outpace inflation include stocks (long-run average real return of 7%), real estate, commodities, and TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, which adjust their principal with CPI). The Federal Reserve targets 2% annual inflation as the level that supports economic growth without rapidly eroding purchasing power.