Inflation calculator: what a dollar was worth
See what an amount of money in one month was worth in another, from 1913 to the latest month, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index.
Built by the Tribune's code from official data. No AI wrote this page. Latest data: September 2026. Updated each month after BLS publishes the Consumer Price Index.
How it's calculated
The calculator multiplies your amount by the change in the Consumer Price Index between the two months: amount × (index in the later month ÷ index in the earlier month). It uses the index for all items, for all urban consumers (CPI-U), U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The result is an estimate of overall buying power. Prices of individual goods and services changed by different amounts, and prices differ from place to place. The Bureau of Labor Statistics offers its own CPI Inflation Calculator; small differences can come from rounding.
Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).