Salary Inflation Adjustment Calculator
See what a past salary is worth today, and whether a new offer really beats inflation.
🔒 Runs entirely in your browser — nothing here is ever uploaded
About the Salary Inflation Adjustment Calculator
Adjusts a past salary for inflation to show what it's worth in today's dollars, and checks whether a new or current salary offer actually beats inflation since that past salary — using one flat, editable average annual rate framed specifically around comparing salary offers and raises across years.
- Enter your past salary and the year you earned it.
- Enter the current year and an assumed average annual inflation rate.
- Optionally enter a new or current salary offer to compare.
- Read the inflation-adjusted equivalent, cumulative price change, and whether the offer beats inflation.
A $60,000 salary earned in 2016, adjusted to 2026 at 3%/year: worth about $80,635 today (a cumulative +34.4%). An $80,000 current offer compared to that is about −0.79% — essentially a slight real-terms pay cut despite the large nominal increase.
Uses a single flat average annual inflation rate compounded across the full year span, rather than looking up actual historical year-by-year CPI-U figures. Long-run US CPI inflation has averaged roughly 2.5-3.3%/year depending on the exact period measured. This is a pre-tax, gross-salary comparison.
- • A large nominal raise across many years can still be a real-terms pay cut if it doesn't keep pace with compounded inflation.
- • Try a higher assumed rate to stress-test an offer against a more pessimistic inflation scenario.
- • For a precise historical adjustment using actual CPI-U data, use this site's general Inflation Calculator instead.
- USInflationCalculator.com — U.S. Inflation Rates by Year: Historical Data — accessed 2026-08-31
Illustrative estimate only, not financial or tax advice. Verify figures with a licensed adviser or your local tax authority.