Select an indicator

↔️

As measured in

In last

+6,343%
+3,491%
/ +79%
📐 Logarithmic
0️⃣ Begin at zero

You don't need to go back to the office! Find a remote job on Remote OK and Work from anywhere

2.4%

Inflation is stable and low at 2.4% per year.

You're losing 2.4% of your money to inflation per year or 0.2% per month. At this rate, in 29 years over 50% of your money has evaporated.

💨 See historical inflation rates as measured by Inflation Chart.

📈 This website is made by @levelsio and tracks the real inflation which sometimes happens that governments don't like to tell you about in their official numbers.

Inflation Chart was the first website to accurately prove the rampant inflation of 24% in June 2021 while governments kept stating inflation was low and not an issue. In a way it frontruns the data and uncovers inflation before it is publicly announced.

✨ Last updated: 2024-10, 1 month ago.

💣 TL;DR your money often is getting worth less over time, and when that happens, this site provides evidence for it.

🤖 There's now an Inflation Chart API you can use!

🇺🇸 It focuses on US data since it's the most influential economy in the world and it's easy to collect data on it. But the same probably applies to CA, UK, EU, AU, NZ since the West is so interlinked.

What is this
This chart shows 🟢 the absolute price (like the price you see in the real world) vs. 🔴 the inflation-adjusted price of the stock market (or another market indicator you select). You can inflation-adjust it by the U.S.-dollar money supply M1, M2 or MB (the money base), CPI, Big Mac, Gold, BTC, ETH or many other adjusters.

📉 Combining data sets we can adjust the stock market, or home prices, or food prices, for inflation and find that even if it looks like stock markets and home prices are going up, they may actually be going down in real value.

Explain like I'm 5 years old?

👶 Let's start: select [S&P500] and [M3: All Money] in [all time] on the top of this page. S&P500 is the most important stock market index of 500 big American companies. M3 is all US money in circulation. Make sure [S&P500], [M3], and [S&P500 / M3] is enabled in the top left legend.

The 🟢green line is the actual price of the S&P500 throughout history up to today. The 🔵 blue line is the M3 money in circulation. The 🔴 red line is the S&P500 divided by the M3.

The decrease in real value is visible in the chart at specific moments. Look at the 🔴 red line in 2008, when there was the Financial Crisis and at 2020 when the COVID-19 Pandemic started. That's moments when the Federal Reserve and other central banks started printing lots of money from thin air. You don't see that in the 🟢 green line as that's the official prices and it looks like prices have never been so high. But if you look at the 🔴 red line the S&P500 has barely recovered since 2007. That doesn't mean it's some conspiracy. It just means the nominal/official prices of stock markets and stocks don't tell the whole story of the economy and if it is actually growing or not.

There's more indicators you can adjust by. Try a few by clicking on the select box top left and changing it. You can also change what you'd like to adjust by, by clicking the right select box. And you can change the time view with the third box. Happy researching!

What data you use?

💲 Inflation US is based on the change in 💰 Cost of Living US below. See the difference in the official 🛒 US CPI vs the real 💰 US Cost of Living.

💰 Cost of Living US is based on the proportion % of household spending in each category like rent, housing, food, energy, transportation. It is then retroactively benchmarked and fitted to the actual US cost of living. It's a simplified indicator but is a realistic approximation of cost of living vs. the official 🛒 US CPI which official inflation numbers are based on as it includes a more realistic basket of goods and housing costs.

🇺🇸 S&P500, Dow Jones (DJI) and NASDAQ are the most common stock market indices, representing the performance of the United States, but in a way are so important they're quite benchmark of the West and the entire globe. Investors use these indices (plural of index) as a benchmark of the overall market conditions. The NASDAQ index especially is heavily weighted towards tech.

💰 GDP US is the gross domestic product of the U.S..

💰 Income Median US is the personal income per capita.

🏆 Gold is the gold price from IndexMundi.

🥇 BTC/ETH and $TSLA prices are from Google Finance.

🛒 Consumer Price Index US (CPI) is a basket of goods (like milk, bread, meat etc.) that's commonly used as the official inflation number. It's heavily criticized though for underreporting actual inflation.

🍔 Big Mac Index measures the average price of a Big Mac at McDonald's in the United States and is famously used in the Economist's Big Mac Index to measure inflation.

🥩 Food Price Index (FPI) by the United Nations is a measure of the international prices of a basket of 5 food commodities which are: sugar, cereals, vegetable oils, meat and dairy.

🏡 House Price Median US is the median U.S. single-family home price, with historical data from DQYDJ.

🖨 As the Federal Reserve is printing money, it's expected that the real value of each US dollar decreases (called inflation). To estimate how much money is printed, I use the Fed's M3 money supply data. M3 is a measure of the money supply that includes physical currency and bank accounts, savings accounts (heavily simplified), and the total amount of a currency that is either in general circulation in the hands of the public or in the commercial bank deposits held in the central bank's reserves.

❌ Caveats: this isn't financial advice and MB, M1 and M2 are limited measures of the money supply. That there's growing inflation due to printing of money I think we can all agree on though. I hope this site helps to visualize this a bit.

🧨 "The end game of rampant inflation is always war and/or revolution. Show me a regime change, and I will show you inflation. When you work your ass off only to stand still or get poorer, any “ism” that promises affordable food and shelter for the unwashed masses will reign supreme. If you are starving to death, nothing else matters except feeding your family. The symptoms of inflation are populism, social strife, food riots, high and rising financial asset prices, and income inequality. (..) Invest wisely and you can maintain or increase your standard of life against the rising fiat cost of energy. Invest poorly and the road to serfdom is real. You will find yourself working harder for a declining standard of living, and your fiat earnings and assets will not be able to keep up with the rising fiat cost of energy." — Arthur Hayes

💬 Hacker News has opinions about this site

👨‍🎨 Made by @levelsio (if you like it, tweet me a fun msg 😊). Inspired by Stonks in BTC by Danny Aziz, and Cryptowatch's layout.

💡 Ideas + 🪲 Bugs