How much is a dollar really worth?
Inflation quietly erodes purchasing power. Convert any amount between two years using official U.S. CPI-U data and see exactly how much money has changed value.
Purchasing Power Converter
Enter an amount and two years to find the equivalent value, the total change, and the reverse conversion.
More tools
Average Inflation Rate
Compound annual inflation and total cumulative change between any two years.
CPI History Table
Browse the full CPI-U series by decade with search and decade totals.
Future Purchasing Power
Project how much today's money will buy after years of inflation.
How this calculator works
The converter uses the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), the most widely cited measure of U.S. inflation. It compares the index level of your "from" year against your "to" year and scales the amount by that ratio.
For example, if you enter $100 from 2000 to 2024, the tool divides the 2024 index (313.689) by the 2000 index (172.2). That ratio, about 1.82, means prices roughly doubled and then some over that period — so $100 in 2000 would need to be about $182 in 2024 to buy the same basket of goods.
The cumulative change shows the total percentage increase (or decrease, in deflationary stretches) across the period. The reverse value flips the question: it tells you how much a dollar in the "to" year was worth back in the "from" year, which is handy for understanding historical prices.
Remember that the CPI is a broad average. Your personal inflation rate depends on what you actually buy — housing, healthcare, tuition, and groceries all move at different speeds. Treat these numbers as a useful approximation, not a precise promise.
Want to dig deeper? Open the CPI table, the inflation-rate calculator, or the future-value calculator.