Inflation calculator
What is $100 from when you were a kid worth today? Compare the purchasing power of money between two years using the official consumer price index.
Data: World Bank, consumer price index (CC BY 4.0).
How is the value of money over time calculated?
Inflation is the general rise in prices. To measure it, each country computes a consumer price index (CPI): the cost of a typical basket of goods and services (food, housing, transport, leisure…) compared with a reference year. If the CPI goes from 100 to 150, what used to cost 100 now costs 150.
equivalent value = amount × CPIend year / CPIstart year
Average annual inflation is the constant rate that would give the same result: (CPIend / CPIstart)1/years − 1. Purchasing power lost tells you what share of what you could buy you can no longer buy with the same amount.
What the bar chart tells you
In the 1970s and early 1980s, the oil crises pushed inflation above 10% in the United States and above 20% in the United Kingdom. Afterwards, independent central banks kept it close to 2% for decades, until the 2021 to 2023 surge driven by energy prices and the end of the pandemic. The green bars, below zero, are years of deflation.
The CPI measures the average change in prices: your personal inflation may differ depending on what you spend your money on. Source: World Bank (FP.CPI.TOTL), base 2010 = 100.
Frequently asked questions
How much do my savings lose to inflation?
With 3 % annual inflation, money loses half its purchasing power in about 23 years; at 2 %, in about 35. That is why leaving savings in an account that pays no interest means losing money in real terms, even if the balance never changes.
How do I compare old prices with today’s money?
Enter the old amount and the year in the calculator, and it scales the price by the change in the consumer price index since then. If the amount is in a currency that no longer exists, such as a pre-euro currency, first convert it at its fixed conversion rate and then apply inflation.
Why is the inflation target 2 % and not 0 %?
Central banks such as the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank aim for 2 % inflation over the medium term because it leaves a buffer against deflation, which is harder to fight: when prices fall, people delay purchases and the economy slows. A little inflation also makes it easier for wages and relative prices to adjust.
What is core inflation?
It is inflation excluding the most volatile prices, usually energy and food. It shows the underlying trend in prices without the noise of swings in oil prices or a bad harvest. The calculator uses the headline consumer price index, which reflects what households actually pay.