$500,000 in 2050 Will Buy About $245,967 in Today's Money

Using measured US CPI, $100 in 2000 has roughly the same buying power as about $182 today. Prices have risen about 1.8x since 2000, so it takes 1.8 times as many dollars to buy the same goods. The exact figure updates with the latest CPI release; switch the calculator to any country to use that country's own index.

Between two years that both have published CPI data, the calculator uses the ratio of the two years' Consumer Price Index values, which captures the inflation that actually happened. For future years (or years before the data begins) it falls back to your assumed annual rate, compounded as (1 + rate) raised to the number of years. It never uses simple, non-compounding inflation.

At minimum, your salary needs to grow by the annual inflation rate every year just to stand still. At 6% inflation, a salary that doesn't rise loses about 44% of its buying power over 10 years. A raise below the inflation rate is a real-terms pay cut even though the number on your payslip went up.

If inflation averages 6%, the buying power of ₹1,00,000 today shrinks to about ₹31,000 in today's money after 20 years, so you'd need roughly ₹3,20,000 then to buy what ₹1,00,000 buys now. At 3%, $1,000 would need to become about $1,806 over 20 years to hold its value. Use the Today→Future mode to run your own figure.