Inflation Calculator

What this calculator does

It converts a sum of money from a past year into today's prices. The question it answers — "what would that be worth now?" — is the one people ask about an old salary, a house price in a family story, a fine printed in a newspaper archive, or the cost of something their grandparents remember.

The index behind the answer

The conversion uses the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It tracks what a fixed basket of goods and services costs over time, and it is the standard series for this kind of comparison.

• Each past year is represented by the annual average BLS publishes for it — the figure from the agency, not one derived here from monthly values.
• "Today" means the most recent published month, currently July 2026.
• The formula is a ratio: amount × (today's index ÷ that year's index).

Years run from 1913, where the series begins, to 2025 — every year for which BLS has published an annual average. A new one appears here once the agency closes it, usually in January.

Dollars from a given year

• $100 in 1913 · all inflation since 1913
• $100 in 1930 · all inflation since 1930
• $100 in 1950 · all inflation since 1950
• $100 in 1960 · all inflation since 1960
• $100 in 1970 · all inflation since 1970
• $100 in 1980 · all inflation since 1980
• $100 in 1990 · all inflation since 1990
• $100 in 2000 · all inflation since 2000
• $100 in 2010 · all inflation since 2010
• $100 in 2020 · all inflation since 2020

What the CPI will not tell you

The index is an average over a national basket. It is the right instrument for "what was this sum worth", and the wrong one for any single thing you might have bought with it. Over the last half-century the price of tuition, housing and medical care rose far faster than the average, while clothing, televisions and long-distance calls rose much more slowly or fell outright. A conversion says what the money was worth in general — not what any particular purchase would cost.

Two more limits worth keeping in mind. The CPI-U covers urban consumers, who are most but not all of the population. And the further back the comparison reaches, the more the basket itself has changed: comparing 1913 prices to today's means comparing two ways of living, not just two price levels.