Value of $100 in 2021, adjusted to 2025

What happened to prices between 2021 and 2025

Between 2021 and 2025, the Consumer Price Index went from 270.97 to 321.943. Cumulatively, prices increased 18.8%, which works out to an average of 4.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 2021 bought what $0.84 buys in 2025: the 2021 dollar lost 15.8% of its purchasing power over these 4 years.

2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since 1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances, and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25, unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the next two years trying to win.

More about inflation in 2021 →

The destination year: 2025

In 2025, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 2021 had the buying power of $119; the year's average CPI of 321.943 is the level behind every 2025 figure on this page.

2025 was a year of trade policy and data disruptions rather than an inflation surge. Consumer prices rose 2.6% on average, a step down from 2024’s 2.9% and well below the 8.0% of 2022. Tariffs announced in April pushed up prices for some imported goods, including furniture, apparel, and auto parts, but the effect on the overall index was smaller than many forecasters feared at the start of the year, in part because retailers absorbed some of the cost and demand for services stayed steady.

The Federal Reserve held its policy rate steady through the first half of the year, then began cutting again in September, lowering it in three quarter-point steps to 3.50–3.75% by December.

The federal government shutdown that began October 1 lasted 43 days, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish a CPI for October 2025 because the survey data could not be collected. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp rose to 78 cents in July.

More about inflation in 2025 →