Inflation Calculators

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What a dollar-figure conversion actually tells you

Converting a dollar amount from one year to another answers a narrow question: what sum in year B buys roughly what the original sum bought in year A. The standard yardstick is the US CPI-U, the index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks the price of a fixed representative basket of consumer goods and services.

Two different questions get confused constantly. Cumulative inflation is the total change between two dates; the annualised rate is the steady yearly rate that would produce the same cumulative change. Over long spans these two numbers look very different, and quoting the wrong one is the most common misuse of historical price data.

Our US inflation calculator covers 1800–2025, using official CPI-U data from 1913 onward and published academic estimates for earlier years. Read the source note on the page before citing a pre-1913 figure.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating CPI-U as if it measured your personal spending pattern, it measures an average basket.
• Comparing wages and prices over time without stating which index was used.
• Mixing CPI-U with CPI-W or with a regional index in the same comparison.
• Quoting a cumulative change as if it were an annual rate, or the reverse.
• Assuming pre-1913 figures carry the same precision as post-1913 official data.

Frequently asked questions