Inflation Calculator (US Dollar, CPI)

This inflation calculator tells you what an amount of US dollars from one year is worth in another year, based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pick any year from 1913 to today, enter an amount, and you get the equivalent value, the total (cumulative) inflation between the two dates, the average yearly inflation rate and how much purchasing power cash lost over the period. It works in both directions: you can ask what $100 in 1990 is worth today, or what $100 today would have been in 1990.

The data comes straight from BLS series CUUR0000SA0: CPI-U, US city average, all items, not seasonally adjusted, with 1982–84 = 100. For past years the calculator uses the official annual average index. For 2026 there is no annual average yet, so it uses the latest monthly index, September 2026 (336.940), released by BLS on October 14, 2026. A month-to-month mode covers every month from January 2025 to September 2026, which is handy for checking recent price changes, contract escalations or rent increases. October 2025 is missing because BLS could not collect prices during the 2025 lapse in federal appropriations, so no index exists for that month.

Worked example: what is $100 from 1990 worth today? The 1990 annual average CPI-U was 130.7 and the September 2026 index is 336.940. The equivalent value is $100 × 336.940 ÷ 130.7 = $257.80. Prices are 2.58 times higher, which is cumulative inflation of 157.8%, or an average of about 2.67% a year over 36 years. Put another way, a $100 bill kept in a drawer since 1990 has lost 61.2% of its purchasing power. Other common questions: $1 in 1950 equals about $13.98 today, $100 in 2000 equals about $195.67, and a $50,000 salary in 2015 would need to be about $71,079 today just to buy the same things.

Beyond the single answer, the tool shows a decade table of what your amount is worth at the start of every decade since the 1920s, and a chart of how its value climbed across the period you picked, so you can see the high-inflation 1970s, the 1930s deflation and the 2021–2022 surge at a glance. The salary check compares a past salary with your pay now: it tells you the salary you would need today to match your old buying power, whether your raise beat inflation, and by how much in real terms. You can share any result with a link that keeps your inputs.

Keep in mind that CPI measures the average price change for urban households across a large basket of goods and services. Your personal inflation rate can be higher or lower depending on what you buy: rent, insurance and food away from home have risen faster than average in recent years, while many electronics have become cheaper. Over the very long run, US prices rose about 3.16% a year from 1913 to 2025, which is why $100 from 1913 is worth roughly $3,252 in 2025 dollars. The Federal Reserve aims for 2% a year over time, so money in savings that earns less than inflation slowly loses value.