Guides

Understand inflation

• The Great Inflation: America's 1965–1982 Price Spiral

  1970s inflation ran from 1965 to 1982: Vietnam-era spending, Nixon's wage controls, two oil shocks, and Volcker's rate hikes that broke it.

• US Inflation Rate by Year, 1913–2025

  Every US annual inflation rate from 1913 to 2025, straight from BLS CPI-U data, year by year with the index value behind each rate.

• Inflation by Decade: The Full American Story

  How U.S. inflation moved decade by decade since 1913: wartime spikes, Depression deflation, the 1970s surge, and the 2020s rebound, in real CPI numbers.

• Why Inflation Was So High in 2022: The 2021-2023 Surge

  Inflation hit a 40-year high in 2022, then cooled through 2023 and 2024. What drove the pandemic-era surge, and why it faded without a recession.

• How the Social Security COLA Is Calculated

  Social Security's annual raise isn't set by Congress. It's a formula tied to CPI-W, and it has been zero three times since automatic COLAs began.

• Minimum Wage Adjusted for Inflation: 1938 to Today

  The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009, the longest freeze in its history. Adjusted for inflation, it buys a third less than it did then.

• What Is Hyperinflation? Causes and Real Examples

  Hyperinflation is inflation so extreme that money loses meaningful value within weeks. What causes it, how it differs from ordinary inflation, and how it ends.

• How Inflation Affects Your Salary: The Raise Math

  A raise below the inflation rate is a real pay cut. The break-even formula, a real six-year example, and what to ask for in a negotiation.

• How the Fed Fights Inflation With Interest Rates

  The Fed fights inflation by raising interest rates to slow borrowing and spending. How the mechanism works, why it takes years, and where it falls short.

• How Inflation Erodes Cash Savings: The Real Math

  Cash earning less interest than the inflation rate loses real value every year, and the loss compounds. Here's what that costs, in real CPI numbers.

• What Causes Inflation? Demand, Costs, and the Money Supply

  Inflation traces back to three forces: too much demand, rising costs, and too much money in circulation. How each one shows up in real U.S. CPI history.

• Stagflation, Explained: When Prices Rise as Growth Stalls

  Stagflation pairs high inflation with stalled growth, a mix economists once thought impossible. How it works, and how the U.S. lived through it in the 1970s.

• Real vs. Nominal Values: The Difference Inflation Makes

  A nominal value is unadjusted; a real value accounts for inflation. Confusing the two makes raises, savings, and growth look bigger than they really are.

• What Is Deflation, and Why Economists Fear It

  Deflation is a sustained fall in the general price level, the opposite of inflation, and economists fear it more than moderate inflation.

• What Is Core Inflation? Why Food and Energy Are Excluded

  Core inflation strips food and energy out of the CPI to see the underlying trend. Why economists exclude them, and how core compares to the headline number.

• What's in the CPI Basket? Every Category Explained

  The CPI's eight major groups, from shelter to apparel, with their current weights, what each one actually contains, and how the basket gets updated.

• What Is Purchasing Power? How Inflation Erodes What Money Buys

  Purchasing power is what a dollar actually buys, and inflation erodes it every year. What the term means, how it's measured, and why $100 buys less over time.

• CPI vs. PCE: Why the Fed Watches a Different Inflation Number

  The CPI makes headlines, but the Federal Reserve targets PCE inflation. How the two indexes differ in scope, weights, and formula, and why PCE runs lower.

• How Inflation Is Calculated: CPI, the Basket, and the Math

  How the BLS turns 80,000 monthly price quotes into the Consumer Price Index, and how the CPI becomes the inflation rate you see in every headline.