What is a dollar from one year worth in another?

What $100 from 1990 buys now

The calculator above starts with a common question: what is $100.00 from 1990 worth today? Using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), the answer is about $257.80 in September 2026, the latest month the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has published. Consumer prices rose 157.8% between the 1990 annual average (an index of 130.7) and that month (336.940).

That is the whole calculation: multiply the amount by the ratio of the two index values. The CPI is a price index, not a price, so its level on its own means little; only the ratio between two dates does. The index is set so that its 1982–84 average equals 100, and any two dates can be compared with it.

Rising prices and lost buying power are different numbers

A price increase of 157.8% does not mean money lost 157.8% of its value, which would be more than all of it. Turn the same ratio around: an unchanged $100.00 held from 1990 to September 2026 buys what $38.79 bought in 1990. That is a 61.2% loss of purchasing power. The two figures always differ, and the gap widens as prices rise: when prices double, a dollar buys half as much, a 50% loss rather than 100%.

The calculator shows both. Switch the timeline to Buying power to see the second view: the line falls as prices rise, measured in starting-period dollars.

A century of the dollar

BLS publishes this index back to January 1913. A dollar in 1913 had about the same purchasing power as $34.03 in September 2026; put the other way, a dollar today buys what about 2.9 cents bought then.

The rise was not steady. Comparing each year's annual average with the year before, prices rose fastest in 1918 (18.0%), near the end of World War I, and the highest rate since 1950 was 13.5% in 1980. Prices also fell: the annual average declined in 13 of the 112 year-to-year comparisons, by as much as 10.5% in 1921, and in every year from 1930 through 1933. Since 1950 it fell only in 1955 and 2009. In a year of falling prices the calculator returns a smaller amount, not a bigger one.

More recently, prices in September 2026 were 30.2% above the 2020 average. Prices were 3.7% higher than in September 2025.

Prices did not rise evenly

The CPI also publishes separate indexes for the things people buy, and the chart of categories shows how different they are over the same span. From 1990 to September 2026, 7 of the 12 categories shown rose faster than all items (158%). College tuition rose the most, by 474%: by this measure, $100.00 of college tuition and fees in 1990 corresponded to about $573.56 in September 2026. Car insurance rose 376%, medical care 265%, and rent 225%. At the other end, clothing rose only 13% and new vehicles 48%, while the television index fell 99%.

Two cautions apply. First, these are price changes for comparable items, not changes in what a household spends: an index tracks the price of a similar product or service over time, and when a product is replaced by a better model BLS tries to separate the change in quality from the change in price, with methods that differ by item and have changed over time. The fall in the television index should be read that way, not as the change in the price tag of a typical set. Second, the chart describes how much each index moved; it does not explain why, and it does not show which categories matter most in a budget. A category's weight in the overall index depends on how much households spend on it.

Gasoline is also volatile, so its change depends heavily on the month chosen as an endpoint; compare annual averages for a steadier reading.

The missing month

BLS did not collect CPI data for October 2025 because of the lapse in federal appropriations from October 1 to November 12, 2025, and it never published an October 2025 index for most series. The calculator follows BLS: October 2025 cannot be chosen, and the monthly timeline shows a gap rather than an estimate. Comparisons that start or end on either side of the gap still work, because each needs only its two endpoints. From September to November 2025 the index moved from 324.800 to 324.122 (−0.2%, not seasonally adjusted).

The gap also affects the 2025 annual average. BLS computed it from the 11 months it published, giving 321.943, and the calculator uses that published figure and labels it. A few categories differ: car insurance is also missing November 2025, while gasoline and new vehicles have October values: BLS calculates a few indexes from non-survey data and could obtain most of it for October after the fact.

What this calculator does not tell you

The CPI-U measures the average change in prices paid by urban consumers, a group BLS says covers over 90 percent of the U.S. population. It is a well-documented answer to "what did prices do?", but it has limits worth keeping in mind:

• It is not your personal inflation rate. BLS bases the index on the spending of an average household. If you spend more than average on something whose price rose quickly, your own costs rose faster, and the reverse is also true.
• It is not a return on an investment. The CPI excludes stocks, bonds and other investments, and it does not track home prices as investments; housing costs enter through rents and the rental equivalent of owned homes. Use it to compare purchasing power, not to judge what an asset should be worth.
• It is not a currency converter or a wage measure. The result says what amount would buy roughly the same consumer goods and services; it does not say what people earned or what anything costs abroad.
• The index itself has changed. BLS introduced the CPI-U in 1978 and publishes this series back to 1913. Over that span the basket, the population covered and the methods have been revised many times, so century-long comparisons are approximate. BLS publishes a separate research series that applies current methods back to 1978 for researchers who need that consistency; it is not used here.

How much is a dollar from a past year worth today?

Enter 1 as the amount, choose the past year as From, and leave To at the latest month. For example, a dollar in 1913 had about the same purchasing power as $34.03 in September 2026. The table under "The data" lists the value of $100 from every year since 1913.

Why does "prices rose X%" not mean my money lost X% of its value?

Because the two percentages answer different questions. If prices rise 25%, $125 is needed to buy what $100 bought, and an unchanged $100 now buys only what $80 bought before: 20% less. Both figures are shown with every result.

Should I compare years or months?

Use years when you are thinking about a whole year, such as a salary or a price from "1985". A year uses BLS's annual average. Use months when you know the exact month, or to match BLS's own calculator, which compares months. The latest data are always a month, because the current year's average is not published until the year ends.

Why can't I choose October 2025?

BLS could not collect prices that month during the 2025 lapse in federal appropriations and never published an index for it. Choose September or November 2025 instead. BLS's 2025 annual average uses the 11 months it did publish.

Is this my personal inflation rate?

No. The CPI-U reflects the spending of an average urban household. The category chart shows how much individual prices differ; if your budget leans toward fast-rising items such as tuition, insurance or rent, your costs have risen faster than the average.

Does this tell me what an investment or a house should be worth?

No. The CPI does not include investments, and it treats housing through rents. It answers what amount buys roughly the same consumer goods and services, not what an asset should have earned.

Can I reuse the data?

Yes. The CSV download contains every value used on this page, monthly and annual, for all thirteen series. BLS statistics are in the public domain; please credit the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as the source.