U.S. pay, inflation & working hours

Did your pay really go up?

Compare your pay before and after inflation—even when your hours change. See what happened to your annual purchasing power and to the value of each hour.

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About the inflation data

Compare two situations

Use gross pay before taxes. Choose an annual salary or an hourly rate independently for each situation.

Try an example:Same hours Fewer hours More hours

Dates use monthly CPI, not daily prices. Only published observations can be compared.

This calculator needs JavaScript to keep your pay on your device. You can still read the worked examples and calculation method.

Use the same paid-hour or worked-hour basis on both sides. Hourly mode uses paid weeks and the entered hourly rate. For total pay divided by actual hours worked, use annual salary mode, including any paid leave in that annual amount. How to count your hours

Your comparison

Pay and purchasing power

Real annual income

Change after inflation

Real pay per hour

Change after inflation

The same pay, shown in comparable dollars
Measure	Earlier	Later	Later in earlier dollars
Annual gross income
Effective pay per hour
Annual schedule			Hours are not inflation-adjusted.

What would preserve your earlier purchasing power?

For your annual income

For each hour, at the later schedule

These are arithmetic equivalents, not a recommended salary or a judgment about whether the extra time off is worth it.

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Why two answers can both be right

A larger annual salary can buy more over a year while each hour buys less. A higher hourly rate can also leave you with less annual income if you work fewer hours. Keeping these two measures together makes the trade-off visible.

What “real” pay means here

Real pay is adjusted for the change in the national Consumer Price Index between your two selected months. The comparison is before taxes, and your own expenses may rise faster or slower than the index.

In hourly mode, pay per hour is the rate you entered. To account separately for paid leave or unpaid work, use annual salary mode with total annual pay and actual working hours.

The annual amounts describe a full year at each entered pay and schedule. They do not calculate what you actually earned in a calendar year when a raise happened midway through it. There is no automatic overtime premium.

Explore three worked examples · Read the formulas and limitations