Inflation-Adjusted Salary Calculator
Find out what your salary is really worth after inflation — or how much of a raise you need to keep up.
How to Use This Calculator
1. Enter your salary in the starting year.
2. Select the year you earned that salary, and the year you want to compare to.
3. The result shows what you'd need to earn in the target year to have the same real purchasing power.
Use case: Check if your salary has kept up with inflation over time, or see if a job offer in a different year represents a real raise.
Real-World Examples
$60,000 × (314.2 / 237.0) = $79,547 — you need a ~33% raise just to break even with inflation.
$100,000 × (304.7 / 255.7) = $119,163 — 2019–2023 inflation wiped out 16% of real purchasing power.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nominal salary is the dollar amount on your paycheck. Real salary is adjusted for inflation — it reflects actual purchasing power. A 10% raise during 8% inflation is really only a 2% real raise.
Divide your new salary by your old salary, then divide by (1 + inflation rate). If the result > 1, you got a real raise. Example: $75k to $82k during 5% inflation: 82/75 = 1.093, 1.093/1.05 = 1.041 → 4.1% real raise.
CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers) from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics — the standard measure of inflation used for cost-of-living adjustments.
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