An inflation calculator translates money across time. Pick a from-year and to-year between 2015 and 2024 to adjust any amount using approximate BLS CPI-U annual averages, and see the cumulative inflation between those years. Prefer your own assumption? Switch to custom-rate mode and project with any annual inflation rate.
Adjust for inflation
Approximate CPI-U annual averages used: 2015: 237.0, 2016: 240.0, 2017: 245.1, 2018: 251.1, 2019: 255.7, 2020: 258.8, 2021: 271.0, 2022: 292.7, 2023: 304.7, 2024: 314.2.
What changed
How do you adjust for inflation with CPI?
Multiply the amount by the ratio of CPI indexes: amount x (CPI in target year / CPI in base year). $100 in 2015 x (314.2 / 237.0) = about $132.58 in 2024 dollars.
This uses approximate annual-average CPI-U values. Official BLS monthly figures give slightly different results.
What does cumulative inflation mean?
The total percent prices rose between two years. From 2015 to 2024 the approximate CPI ratio gives about 32.6% cumulative inflation, meaning $100 then buys what ~$132.58 buys now.
Cumulative inflation compounds: it is not the sum of annual rates but their multiplied effect.
How does inflation affect purchasing power?
When prices rise and your money does not, each dollar buys less. 32.6% cumulative inflation means $100 of 2015 purchasing power needs $132.58 in 2024.
Wages, savings and investments must grow at least as fast as inflation just to stand still in real terms.
Frequently asked questions
Where do the CPI numbers come from?
They are rounded annual averages of the BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), 2015-2024, clearly labeled approximate. See bls.gov for official monthly values.
Why only 2015 to 2024?
Those are the years with embedded approximate annual averages. For other years, use custom-rate mode with a known average annual rate.
Can I project future inflation?
Yes, with custom-rate mode: enter any annual rate and number of years. It compounds the rate forward as an illustration, not a forecast.
What if the to-year is before the from-year?
That works fine: it deflates the amount backward, showing what a later amount was worth in earlier dollars.
Is my data uploaded anywhere?
No. All math runs in your browser with JavaScript. Nothing is sent to any server.