What is money from a past year worth today? The Points Frog inflation calculator answers with the official consumer price index, back to 1913. Its lead example: $100 from 1990 is worth $257.80 at September 2026 prices.
Put another way, prices have risen 157.8% since 1990, an average of 2.6% a year. A 1990 dollar buys about 39 cents' worth today.
The index is the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, or CPI-U, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the 12 months to September 2026, it rose 3.7% before seasonal adjustment.
How the math works
Multiply the amount by the later index and divide by the earlier one. The CPI-U averaged 130.7 in 1990 and was 336.940 in September 2026. So $100 times 336.940, divided by 130.7, comes to $257.80.
The same ratio works for any amount. In 2000 the index averaged 172.2, so a $50,000 salary from that year comes to about $97,834 in September 2026 dollars. By the index, that is the pay it takes today to buy what $50,000 bought then.
For the average yearly rate, the calculator takes the ratio of the two indexes, raises it to the power of 1 over the number of years, and subtracts 1.
What a dollar from past years is worth
All figures are in September 2026 dollars:
| Year | $1 then | $100 then | Prices since |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | $8.68 | $868.40 | +768.4% |
| 1980 | $4.09 | $408.91 | +308.9% |
| 1990 | $2.58 | $257.80 | +157.8% |
| 2000 | $1.96 | $195.67 | +95.7% |
| 2010 | $1.55 | $154.52 | +54.5% |
| 2020 | $1.30 | $130.19 | +30.2% |
A dollar from 2000 now buys about 51 cents' worth, and a 1970 dollar about 12 cents' worth.
Recent years show how fast prices can add up. They have risen 30.2% since 2020, an average of 4.3% a year through September 2026. So a 2020 dollar now buys about 77 cents' worth. Over the whole of the 2010s, by contrast, prices rose 19.2%.
Inflation over the long run
Since 1913, the first year of the index, prices have risen an average of 3.2% a year. A dollar from 1913 is worth $34.03 today. The pace has varied a lot. Inflation averaged 7.1% a year in the 1970s, 1.8% in the 2010s and 3.9% from 2020 through 2025. Prices fell in the 1920s and 1930s.
The highest year was 1918, when prices rose 18.0% at the end of World War I. Since 1950, the peak was 1980, at 13.5%. Since 2000, it was 2022, at 8.0%. Prices fell in 13 years, most steeply in 1921 and most recently in 2009. Over the whole of 2025, prices averaged 2.6% higher than in 2024.
What the calculator leaves out
The CPI-U measures an average basket of goods and services for urban consumers. It covers about 93% of the US population. Your own costs depend on what you buy and where you live. Rent, insurance, tuition or gasoline can rise faster or slower than the index as a whole.
The calculator compares each year's annual average with the latest month. The BLS CPI Inflation Calculator compares one month with another, so a date early or late in a year can give a somewhat different answer. Both use the same series. The calculator does not predict future inflation. It is an educational tool, not financial advice.
There is one gap in the data. BLS did not collect CPI data from October 1 through November 12, 2025, during the federal government shutdown. It has no October 2025 index, and its 2025 average covers the other 11 months.
Where the figures come from
The calculator uses the CPI-U for all items, US city average, not seasonally adjusted, with 1982 to 1984 set to 100. Annual averages are as BLS publishes them, and the monthly index comes via FRED (series CPIAUCNS), updated October 18, 2026.
Use it on your own site
The inflation calculator is free to embed on a blog or site with copy-and-paste code, and it carries no ads or tracking. Here is how to embed it.
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U via FRED, through September 2026, updated October 18, 2026; BLS CPI-U annual averages. Figures are educational estimates, not financial advice.