The value of money
What is money from 1950 worth today?
Measured by U.S. consumer prices, a dollar from January 1950 takes 14.25 dollars to match today. Below, the standard amounts — and what they bought at the time.
1950 amounts, in today’s money
$1.00$14.25
$10.00$143
$100$1,425
$1,000$14,254
$10,000$142,545
$100,000$1,425,447
CPI-U, all items, not seasonally adjusted · January 1950 to August 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Had $10,000 been invested in 1950 instead
A different question again: not what money could buy, but what it would have become. Equity figures include reinvested dividends.
U.S. Large-Cap Equity Composite (total return)observation June 2026 · Robert J. Shiller, Yale University$45,524,204