Raise vs inflation calculator
Your raises compounded against the price level that actually happened, one calendar year at a time. Not an average rate, and not a subtraction.
Worked example — Cumulative change in real pay, 2015 to 2025: Real pay cut: -1.1%. $70,000 starting salary, 3% flat raise, 2.5% forward inflation
Typical flat 3% raise, last decade: The page's current default, already the worked example in its own copy.
The last two table columns disagree on purpose. A 3% raise against 2% inflation is not a 1% real raise, it is 0.98%, because purchasing power divides. Over this window the subtraction adds up to -1.3% while the compounded truth is -1.1%. Applying one average inflation rate instead of the year-by-year series lands 0.17 points away from the compounded answer: the arithmetic average of these rates is 3.13% against a compounded 3.11%. Source: BLS CPI-U CUUR0000SA0, annual average, index, 1982-84=100, 1913 to 2025; retrieved 2026-08-14.
Reload to use your own salary history. The verified worked example is still available:
- Starting salary
- $70,000
- Years
- 2015 to 2025
- Annual raise
- 3%
- Real-pay result
- -1.1%
Did my raise keep up with inflation?
No. On a $70,000 salary given a flat 3% raise every year from 2015 to 2025, real pay moved -1.1% once compounded against realised BLS CPI-U. Real pay peaked in 2020, worth $74,316 in 2015 dollars, and 3 of the 10 years in that window were a real pay cut even though the nominal raise was positive every year. A three per cent raise against two per cent inflation is not a one per cent real raise; it is 0.98%, because purchasing power divides rather than subtracts.
Raise needed to stand still, by year
The raise that exactly holds real pay flat in a given year is that year's realised CPI-U inflation, nothing more.
| Year | CPI-U inflation | Raise needed to stand still |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2.44% | 2.44% |
| 2019 | 1.81% | 1.81% |
| 2020 | 1.23% | 1.23% |
| 2021 | 4.70% | 4.70% |
| 2022 | 8.00% | 8.00% |
| 2023 | 4.12% | 4.12% |
| 2024 | 2.95% | 2.95% |
| 2025 | 2.63% | 2.63% |
What this does not model
Gross pay only. No tax bands or bracket creep, no payroll deductions, no benefits, bonus, overtime, or equity, and no change in hours, title, or employer. CPI-U is the national all-items index for urban consumers and it is not your personal cost of living: rent-heavy or childcare-heavy budgets have moved differently from the headline. Annual averages are used, so a raise granted in March is treated the same as one granted in November. Years past 2025 use the assumption you supply and are labelled as assumed everywhere they appear.
To inspect the CPI-U levels behind each year, use the inflation calculator. To turn the resulting real salary into a savings path, the compound interest calculator projects contributions forward, and the real after-tax return calculator shows what those savings keep once tax and inflation are both taken.
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Inflation calculatorCalculatorInspect the CPI-U values behind each year of this comparison, with the source and the annual rate.Open nextOther questions
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