$20 in 1917 Is Worth $521.75 Today

This calculator answers one question: what a sum of money from a past year is worth in today's prices. Enter the amount and the year it was spent or earned, and the result is the equivalent in dollars as of July 2026.

Enter the amount: the sum in the dollars of the earlier year.

Enter the year: any year from 1913 to 2025.

Read the result: the equivalent amount today, the total price growth over the span, and the average yearly rate that adds up to it.

So $20 in 1917 has the same buying power as $521.75 today — prices rose 2,508.73% over those 109 years, which averages 3.04% a year.

The figures come from the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), the series the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes for exactly this purpose. Each past year is represented by the annual average BLS itself publishes for it, and today by the most recent published month, July 2026. Because the whole answer is a function of that published table, it does not drift from day to day; it changes when BLS releases a new month.

One limit worth naming: the CPI measures a national basket of goods and services. It is the right instrument for "what was this worth", and the wrong one for any single item, because rents, tuition, computers and eggs have not moved together.