Find what an amount of U.S. dollars from any month since 1913 is worth in another month, or see the effect of a steady inflation rate over a number of years.
Inflation is the general rise in prices over time. When prices rise, each dollar buys less, so the same amount of money has different buying power in different years. To compare amounts across time you adjust them with a price index. This calculator uses the U.S. Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It covers every month from January 1913 to the latest release.
Pick an amount, the month and year it belongs to, and the month and year you want to compare with. The calculator multiplies the amount by the price index of the second date and divides by the index of the first. If prices rose 26% between the two dates, then $100 in the earlier month matches $126 in the later one. For gaps of more than a year it also shows the average yearly rate, which is the steady rate that would give the same total change. Choose Average instead of a month to use the average index for a whole year, which is handy when you only know the year.
The forward and backward modes use one steady inflation rate instead of real data. The forward mode shows what a price today could become after a number of years. The backward mode shows what today's amount was worth in the past at that rate. Inflation in developed countries has often been close to 3% a year, which is a reasonable starting point for planning, but you can use any rate.
The Consumer Price Index, or CPI, tracks the average price of a basket of goods and services that urban consumers buy, such as food, housing, transport and medical care. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes it every month, and the change in the index over time is the inflation rate.
Multiply the amount by the price index of the later date and divide by the price index of the earlier date. If the index rose by 26%, then $100 in the earlier month needs $126 in the later month to buy the same things.
Choosing Average uses the average price index for the whole year instead of one month. It is useful when you only know the year, such as a salary or price from 1995. The calculator treats a yearly average as the middle of the year when it works out the average rate per year.
No official price index was published for October 2025. The calculator fills that month with the midpoint of September and November, so a calculation that uses October 2025 is an estimate.
Use them for planning, when you want to assume a steady inflation rate. The forward calculator shows what something costing a given amount today could cost in the future, and the backward calculator shows what a current amount was worth in the past at an assumed rate. Historical U.S. inflation has often been near 3% a year.
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