Spending $X in year A is like spending $Y in year B.
Pick a year, pick an amount. We crunch official BLS Consumer Price Index data and show you what those dollars are really worth today (or any other year you choose).
Inflation calculator
How the Fiat Watch inflation calculator works
Inflation erodes the value of money over time. A dollar in 1913 bought a lot more bread, gasoline, and rent than a dollar today. To compare prices across years fairly, we use the Consumer Price Index — a basket of goods the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has been tracking since 1913.
The math is simple:
converted = amount × (CPItarget ÷ CPIstart).
We use the annual averages of the CPI-U (All Urban Consumers, series CUUR0000SA0) so the
result reflects a typical year, not a single noisy month.
Frequently asked questions
- What years are supported?
- Annual averages from 1913 through 2026. April CPI is used for 2026 until the annual average is published.
- Why do my answers differ slightly from other calculators?
- Most calculators use annual averages, but a few use specific months (often December or January). We use annual averages — the same approach the BLS recommends for long-horizon comparisons.
- Where does the data come from?
- Directly from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The dataset bundled with this site is refreshable via a single Rake task that hits the public BLS API.