Inflation Calculator

From the website:

The inflation calculator uses U.S. government provided Consumer Price Index (CPI) data to measure the purchasing power of the dollar over time. It’ll provide a look into the present, past or any time between.

How to use: You can start with any date from 1913 through 2009. The first date field can also begin in the present, like 2009, and then move backwards – each method is interesting. The inflation calculator starts with default values just to give a quick glimpse into how it works. Simply clear or edit the numbers with your own.

This site made me think of the first wages I ever made at a "real" job. It was back in the early 70's and like most kids then and now, I made minimum wage: $1.90/hr. Sometime shortly after that, it went up to two dollars an hour. Working for the county, which wasn't bound by overtime laws, we were allowed to work fifty hours a week for a cool hundred bucks, less taxes.

(which I seem to recall was something like seven/eight dollars taken out of each weekly paycheck. I was annoyed that I had to work a half day each week to pay Uncle Sam. Little did I know those were the good ol' days, huh?)

Using the inflation calculator, I input my first hourly wage and what it would be now adjusted for inflation:



Ten bucks an hour is quite a bit above minimum wage now! I guess I was luckier than I thought! Discussing what we wanted to do when we got out on our own, a friend of mine said he wanted to be a cowboy; "400 bucks a month, a house furnished and all the beef you can eat!" he exclaimed. "What more could you want?"

Going to a "flashback site", I found that milk was $1.18 per gallon in 1971.



Of course, milk is an agricultural commodity and is subject to the vagaries of the markets, but I bought 2 gallons for five dollars just the other day. I see it for 3 bucks or less all the time.

(and speaking of agriculture markets; I noticed in the paper that the hog market was something like $73/cwt. It was .53 cents a lb. during my first foray into the pig raising business...then dropped to .17 cents just a couple of months later)

I then wondered what gasoline should be adjusted for inflation. I remember when I first started driving it was 28.9 cents, then went up to 32.9 and stayed there for several years...except when there were gasoline wars between stations and sometimes the price would drop to less than .20 cents. (probably at cost to the station) After the first Arab oil embargo the price went up to 53.9 and hasn't looked back since.



So, I found something that outstripped the cost of inflation, or did I? Gasoline was $2.49 yesterday when I filled up, having increased quite a bit since the last time I filled up a month or so ago. The federal tax on gasoline was .04 cents a gallon in '71; by 2008 it had gone up to 18.4. State taxes on gasoline vary from state to state; here in Texas it's .20 per gallon.

At first glance, even allowing for the increase in federal and state taxes, it would seem that gasoline has gone up much more than it should have, all things and inflation considered, but there is a larger demand for it now than was then, so I don't think the current price is so much out of line.

I could have compared the then and now cost of dozens of different things, but the few I tried were enough for me. I remember my ex-wife, then girlfriend, buying one of the first hand-held calculators in 1977 for $79.99. Now you can buy one that has much more computing power for less than ten dollars; you can even buy a keychain calculator for less than a dollar!

I also remember my folks buying a Curtis Mathis color TV in the 60's for something like a thousand bucks (probably two months wages for dad). It was a large "console" model and although I haven't seen one like it in years, fairly large screen TVs can be had for at least half that amount.

Good old days? Maybe we're living in 'em right now!