Past ??Today

What was $X in a past year worth in today's dollars?

Input

Amount

In year

Result

Today ??Future

Project future purchasing power at an assumed inflation rate.

Input

Amount today

Years ahead

yrs

Assumed annual inflation

Result

Any Two Years

Cumulative inflation and equivalent amount between two CPI years.

Input

Amount

From year

To year

Result

CPI History

Annual CPI-U values (1982??4 = 100) and year-over-year inflation.

Chart

CPI-U (City Average, All Items) annual averages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2024 may be revised. Different consumption baskets (medical care, housing, college tuition) inflate at very different rates than the headline number.

How the Math Works

The CPI is an index of average prices for a basket of consumer goods, anchored at 100 for 1982??4. To convert dollars from one year to another:

value_new = value_old 횞 (CPI_new / CPI_old)

Example: $100 in 1970 (CPI 38.8) is equivalent to $100 횞 (314.069 / 38.8) ??$809 in 2024.

What CPI Misses

Quality changes ??CPI tries to adjust for improvements (a 2024 car is not the same product as a 1970 car), but the methodology is debated.
Substitution ??when steak gets expensive, people eat more chicken; older CPI methods didn't capture this.
Owner-occupied housing ??measured via "owners' equivalent rent" rather than home prices, which can diverge sharply.
Personal experience ??your own inflation depends on your spending mix. People in expensive cities or with high medical costs typically experience higher inflation than the headline.

References

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ??Consumer Price Index. bls.gov/cpi