See what an amount of money is worth today

What the numbers mean

The Consumer Price Index tracks what a representative basket of goods and services costs over time. Comparing the index in two years gives the ratio between the two years' money, which is what this page does.

The figure worth understanding is the compound annual rate. Prices rose roughly 3,000% between 1913 and today. Dividing that by the number of years suggests something like 27% a year, which is obviously wrong — the real compounded figure is around 3%. The difference is that each year's increase applies to the previous year's higher prices, not to the original amount.

Where this is misleading

CPI answers "what did this basket cost" — not "what could this buy" in any deeper sense. Three caveats worth carrying:

• Quality changes. A 1985 car and a 2026 car are not the same product. The index adjusts for this, but the adjustment is a judgement rather than a measurement.
• Substitution. When beef gets expensive people buy chicken. A fixed basket overstates the cost of living compared with what people actually do.
• Your basket is not the basket. If your spending is dominated by rent, childcare, or medical costs, you have experienced meaningfully higher inflation than the headline number for most of the past two decades.

For settling an argument about what a wage or a ticket price used to be worth, this is the right tool. For anything financially consequential, treat it as an estimate.

Common questions

Where does the data come from?

Figures use the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), US city average, all items, published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. It runs from 1913 to 2026 and is the series behind most published "what a dollar was worth" comparisons. The data was last refreshed on 2026-07-20.

Why is the annual rate lower than I expected?

The average annual rate shown is compounded, not the total divided by the number of years. Those differ enormously over long spans: prices rose about 3,000% between 1913 and today, which sounds like 27% a year, but compounded it is closer to 3%. Compounding is the meaningful figure, because that is how prices actually behave.

Does this work for the UK or the euro?

Not accurately. This uses US CPI, so it answers questions about US dollars. UK prices followed a different path — notably far higher inflation through the 1970s — and converting sterling with a US index would be misleading. A UK calculator needs the ONS Composite Price Index instead.

Is CPI the right measure?

It is the standard one, but it has known limitations. CPI tracks a fixed basket of goods, so it does not fully capture people substituting one product for another when prices change, and it struggles with quality improvements — a 1990 computer and a 2026 computer are not the same product. For everyday comparisons it is the best available answer; for anything consequential, treat it as approximate.

Why does the current year say it is incomplete?

The annual figure is the average of all twelve monthly index values, so it cannot be final until December is published. Until then the current year is an average of the months so far, which will shift as the rest of the year comes in.