$100 in 2011 is worth $115 in 2020,
because prices increased 15.1% over that period, an average of
1.57% a year.
$100 in 2011 has
the same buying power as
$115
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
15.1%
Average inflation rate
1.57% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$115
Price difference ($100 base)
$15.06
CPI in 2011
224.939
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 2011 → 2020
$115
$100 in 2020 → 2011
$86.91
What happened to prices between 2011 and 2020
Between 2011 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 224.939 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 15.1%, which works out to an average of
1.57% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 2011 bought what
$0.87 buys in 2020: the 2011 dollar
lost 13.1% of its purchasing power over
these 9 years.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
Every 2011 amount converts to 2020 at the same ratio, 1.15: $1,000 becomes
$1,151, and $10,000 becomes $11,506.
Amount in 2011
Value in 2020
$1.00
$1.15
$5.00
$5.75
$10.00
$11.51
$20.00
$23.01
$50.00
$57.53
$100
$115
$500
$575
$1,000
$1,151
$5,000
$5,753
$10,000
$11,506
$100,000
$115,058
$1,000,000
$1,150,583
Inflation by spending category, 2011–2020
Between 2011 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 29.6%, while energy fell 19.3%, against 15.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 2011
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 2011 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.57%
$115
Medical care
2.93%
$130
Housing
2.42%
$124
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.95%
$119
Food
1.79%
$117
Recreation
0.84%
$108
Education & communication
0.73%
$107
Apparel
-0.37%
$96.70
Transportation
-0.59%
$94.81
Energy
-2.35%
$80.75
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 2011
$100 from 2011 had already become $105 by
2015, on its way to $115 in 2020; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 2.4% in 2018, and the smallest rise was 0.1% in 2015.
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 2011 had the buying
power of $115; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 2011 to 2020: $100 is worth $115 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/2011-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 2011 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/2011-to-2020/