US Inflation Calculator
Calculate the equivalent purchasing power of an amount between any two years using historical US CPI-U inflation data.
Amount
$
Start Year
End Year
Equivalent Amount in 2025
$1,862
Total Inflation
86.2%
Annualized Rate
2.52%
How this inflation calculator works
This calculator uses the US Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), the Bureau of Labor Statistics' standard measure of inflation, to convert an amount of money from one year's purchasing power to another's. It answers questions like "what would $1,000 from 2000 be worth in 2025?" or, run in reverse, "what would today's $1,000 have been worth back in 1990?"
Formula
The CPI index tracks the average price of a fixed basket of goods and services over time. Dividing the end year's index by the start year's gives the cumulative inflation ratio between the two dates, which is then applied to your amount.
Example
$1,000 in 2000 is equivalent to roughly $1,862 in 2025 — the CPI-U index rose from about 172.2 to 320.6 over those 25 years, a cumulative inflation of about 86%, or an annualized rate of roughly 2.5% per year.
Common Use Cases
- Adjusting historical salaries, prices, or budgets into today's dollars for comparison.
- Understanding how much purchasing power savings have lost sitting in cash over decades.
- Estimating the annualized inflation rate over a specific historical period.
FAQs
What is CPI-U and where does this data come from?
CPI-U is the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, published monthly by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. This calculator uses annual average index values from 1960 through 2025; the most recent year's figure is approximate and may be revised — check bls.gov for the official, up-to-date index.
Can I calculate purchasing power going backward in time?
Yes — set the start year later than the end year (e.g. start 2025, end 1990) and the calculator applies the same ratio in reverse, showing what today's amount would have been worth in the earlier year.
Does this account for regional cost-of-living differences?
No — CPI-U is a national US average. Actual inflation experienced in a specific city, or for a specific household's spending mix (housing, healthcare, etc.), can run higher or lower than the national average shown here.