US Dollar Inflation Calculator by Year
Find out what a dollar amount from any year is worth in any other year, from 1913 to 2024. Enter an amount, pick the two years, and you get the equivalent value, how much prices changed in between, and the average inflation rate per year. Results update as you type.
$100.00 in 1999 buys what $188.29 buys in 2024. US prices rose 88.3% over those years, an average of 2.6% a year. Change the amount or the years below for your own figure.
$188.29
$100.00 in 1999 has the same buying power as $188.29 in 2024
Data: U.S. BLS CPI-U annual averages (1982-84=100), through 1913–2024. Estimates for general reference only.
To adjust for inflation, multiply the original amount by the ratio of the two years' Consumer Price Index values: value = amount × (CPI_new ÷ CPI_old).
CPI (Consumer Price Index) is the official measure of average prices over time. For example, $100 in 2000 has the buying power of $182.17 in 2024, because US prices rose 82.2% over that span.
How to use the inflation calculator
Type a dollar amount, choose the year it's from and the year you want to compare to, and the answer appears instantly — there's no button to press and nothing is sent anywhere.
The big number is the equivalent buying power: how many dollars in the "to" year it would take to buy what your amount bought in the "from" year. Below it you'll see the total price change across that period and the average inflation per year.
Everything runs in your browser — the numbers you type are never uploaded.
How much is an old dollar amount worth today?
Put the old amount in the box, set the "from" year to the year it belonged to, and leave the "to" year at 2024. The big number is your answer: the number of 2024 dollars it takes to buy the same things.
On this page, "today" means 2024 prices. Inflation is measured as a yearly average, and a year's average is only settled once all twelve of its months are counted, so 2024 is the most recent complete year in the data here. That is what the year range under the calculator is telling you.
A worked example, using the same official data the calculator runs on: $100 in 2000 has the buying power of $182.17 in 2024. Prices rose 82.2% across those years, which works out to 2.5% a year on average.
It also works backwards, which is the question people usually mean when they say a dollar "doesn't go as far". Swap the years and $100 in 2024 is worth about $54.90 in 2000 money, so the same hundred dollars would have covered a good deal more back then. The Swap years button flips the direction in one click.
The same three steps answer the everyday versions of this question: what an old salary would be worth now, whether a raise actually kept up with prices, what a house or a car cost in current money, or how far a grandparent's first paycheck would stretch today.
What $100 is worth today, by year
Each row starts with $100 in that year and shows what it takes to buy the same things in 2024. These are computed from the same CPI-U table the calculator uses, so they move when the data does.
| $100 in | is worth in 2024 | Prices rose | Average per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1913 | $3,168.58 | 3,068.6% | 3.2% |
| 1920 | $1,568.45 | 1,468.4% | 2.7% |
| 1930 | $1,878.38 | 1,778.4% | 3.2% |
| 1940 | $2,240.64 | 2,140.6% | 3.8% |
| 1950 | $1,301.61 | 1,201.6% | 3.5% |
| 1960 | $1,059.76 | 959.8% | 3.8% |
| 1970 | $808.48 | 708.5% | 3.9% |
| 1980 | $380.69 | 280.7% | 3.1% |
| 1990 | $240.01 | 140.0% | 2.6% |
| 2000 | $182.17 | 82.2% | 2.5% |
| 2010 | $143.86 | 43.9% | 2.6% |
| 2020 | $121.20 | 21.2% | 4.9% |
Two things are worth noticing in that table. The last column moves in a far narrower band than the second one: it is compounding over a long stretch, not any single dramatic year, that turns a modest yearly rate into an eye-watering total. And the further back the starting year, the larger the total gets, which is why prices quoted in old dollars sound so implausible until you convert them.
For any year not listed here, use the calculator above; it covers every year from 1913 to 2024.
Common inflation questions
How is the value over time calculated? Your amount is multiplied by the later year's price index and divided by the earlier year's index. In plain terms: if prices doubled, a dollar buys half as much, so it takes twice as many dollars to match.
What is CPI-U? The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It tracks the average price of a typical basket of goods and services and is the standard measure of US consumer inflation.
What does "average inflation per year" mean? It's the compound annual rate that, applied each year, gets from the earlier year's prices to the later year's prices over the period you selected.
Why doesn't it include the current year? The calculator works in annual averages, and a year's average is not settled until every month of that year has been counted. It covers every year through the latest one shown in the range under the calculator.
Is the dollar today worth more or less than in the past? Less, in almost every case. Because prices have generally risen over time, a dollar from an earlier year had more buying power than a dollar today. That's why a salary or savings amount from decades ago "sounds" larger than it really was — enter it here to see the equivalent in today's dollars.
How do I adjust an old salary or price for inflation? Put the original amount in the box, set the "from" year to when it applied, and set the "to" year to now (or any year you want to compare). The result is what that amount would be worth at the later year's prices — handy for comparing a grandparent's first paycheck, an old home price, or a historical ticket cost to today.
Does inflation affect everyone the same way? No. CPI-U tracks an average urban household's basket of goods and services, but your personal inflation rate depends on what you actually spend on. If a big share of your budget goes to categories rising faster than average — such as rent, healthcare, or childcare — your real cost of living can climb faster than the headline number.
Where these inflation figures come from
One series, and we will name it plainly: the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), U.S. city average, all items, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figures used here are its annual averages on the 1982-84 = 100 base, covering 1913 through 2024. Nothing on this page is modelled, smoothed or estimated; every result is that published index divided by itself for two different years.
How often it changes. BLS publishes a new CPI reading each month. A calendar year's annual average is only settled once every month of that year has been counted, so the table here ends at the most recent complete year we hold, 2024. When a later annual average is published we add it, and the year range printed under the calculator is read straight from the data file, so the range you see is always the range we actually have.
How this compares to the calculators you may already know. The Bureau of Labor Statistics runs its own CPI inflation calculator, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis publishes a well-known one too. Both are built on this same official CPI-U data, and so is this page, so a like-for-like comparison should agree. What differs is the interface: this one runs entirely in your browser with nothing uploaded, updates as you type, shows the total price change, the average yearly rate and the cumulative multiplier together rather than one number, and prints the by-year table above so you can see a century at a glance. If you need month-to-month comparisons or the raw index series rather than annual averages, go to BLS directly, which is what its calculator is built for.
These figures are for general reference. CPI-U is a national average for urban households, so it will not match your own cost of living exactly, and it is not a substitute for advice on a specific financial or legal question.