Salary inflation calculator: has your pay kept up with prices?
Enter a past salary, the year and your area, and, if you like, what you earn today. The result is the salary with the same buying power now.
Same buying power in September 2026
$78,113
$60,000 in 2020 average, U.S. average: prices +30.2 % since.
| Raise needed to keep up | $18,113 |
| In percent | +30.2 % |
| Monthly, same buying power | $6,509 |
Before taxes. The index follows the prices paid by urban consumers in the area, not your own basket.
Prepared by Radif Partners · How the figures are built · BLS indexes through September 2026
A salary of $60,000 in 2020 needs to be $78,113 today to buy the same basket at national prices: the CPI-U rose 30.2 % from the 2020 annual average to September 2026. Where you live changes the answer. On the index of the area, the same 2020 salary needs $81,616 in Miami and $73,923 in Houston, the highest and lowest of the 23 metros over that span. A raise of 3 % a year since 2020 would have brought $60,000 to about $71,643, behind the national price level. The calculator gives the salary with the same buying power at the latest month your area has published, the raise that implies, and, if you type your current pay, your real change: positive when your pay grew faster than prices, negative when it did not. It works on prices only: it says nothing about what other jobs pay, and it uses gross pay, before taxes.
What the calculator measures
Your salary buys a share of goods and services. When prices rise and your pay does not, that share shrinks. The calculator takes the CPI-U of your area for the year (or the month) of the old salary and for the latest month published, and scales the salary by their ratio. The result is the pay that buys the same basket now. The difference between that figure and the old salary is the raise you needed just to stand still.
If you enter your current salary, the calculator also gives your real change. Earning $107,670 today in Washington after $85,000 in 2021 is a 3.9 % real raise, because $85,000 of 2021 is $103,670 at today's Washington prices. Earning $99,670 would be a real cut, even though the paycheck is larger than in 2021.
Why your city matters
A metro index follows prices in that metro, and housing makes the biggest difference: shelter is the largest item of the basket and rents are local. Over the same span since 2020, the metro indexes rose between 23.2 % (Houston) and 36.0 % (Miami). For someone who stayed in one place, the local index is the closer measure of what their pay lost or gained. If your area is not one of the 23 metros, pick your region or the size class of your town; the national index is the fallback.
A 2019 salary in your metro today
Same buying power in August 2026
$68,551
| Raise needed to keep up | $18,551 |
| In percent | +37.1 % |
| Monthly, same buying power | $5,713 |
The index of a place does not compare places. If you moved from one city to another, the calculator cannot tell you whether your new pay goes as far as your old one: the two indexes start from different base levels and say nothing about the level of rents or groceries in each city. For a move, the question is the cost of living in each place, which a CPI does not measure.
Annual average or a month
For a salary paid over a whole year, use the annual average of that year: it matches the prices you faced across all twelve paychecks. For a job offer accepted in a given month, the month is closer. The two can differ noticeably in a year of fast inflation: in 2021, prices rose 7.0 % from December 2020 to December 2021, so a salary set in January 2021 lost more in the year than one set in December. For areas priced every other month, the calculator uses the nearest earlier published month and tells you which.
Reading the result honestly
The calculator works on gross pay. Taxes, benefits and retirement contributions change too, and a raise can move you into a higher tax bracket, though brackets themselves are adjusted for inflation each year with the chained CPI-U. It also uses the average urban basket. A household with a long commute felt the gasoline rise of 2026 more than the index; one that owns its home outright felt the rent increases less. Your own inflation can be higher or lower than the index; the BLS explains that published averages do not always match an individual's experience.
A real raise of zero is not a fact about your employer. Pay also reflects your job, your experience and the market for your skills; inflation is only the floor below which a raise is a cut in buying power. Nothing here is advice on what to ask for.
Raises over several years
Raises compound, and so do prices. Two raises of 3 % make 6.09 %, not 6 %, and the same holds for inflation. The calculator compares the old salary and the new one directly, so the compounding is already in the result. Over the 12 months to September 2026, national prices rose 3.7 %: a raise below that this year was, nationally, a cut in buying power. Since 2021, a salary of $60,000 would need $74,608 today, a rise of 24.3 %.
For a raise tied to an index in a contract, the cost-of-living adjustment page applies a 12-month change or the Social Security COLA to any amount. For the value of an amount between any two dates, use the inflation calculator.