What will today's money be worth tomorrow?
A small annual number, compounded over a working life, is rarely small. Pick a horizon and an assumption, and read the same fact from either direction.
Your question
The inflation rate is your assumption, not a reading: set it anywhere from 0% to 15% a year, and the tool opens at 2%. No consumer price series is used here, and no figure on this page is a forecast.
What that amount still buys, in today's money$552,071Held as cash at 2% a year, $1,000,000 buys in 30 years what $552,071 buys today. The amount earns nothing here: this figure separates prices from returns.
Purchasing power lost over the horizon44.8%Read from the compounding factor rather than from the figure above, which is why it is the same in both readings. The same horizon at other assumptions: 1% gives $741,923, 2% gives $552,071, 5% gives $231,377.
One compounding step a year, applied to prices and to nothing else. The path is the engine's own, sampled once a year, and the horizon is a choice rather than a term.
Show the figures
| Year | Worth in today's money | Purchasing power kept |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | $1,000,000 | 100.0% |
| 1 | $980,392 | 98.0% |
| 2 | $961,169 | 96.1% |
| 3 | $942,322 | 94.2% |
| 4 | $923,845 | 92.4% |
| 5 | $905,731 | 90.6% |
| 6 | $887,971 | 88.8% |
| 7 | $870,560 | 87.1% |
| 8 | $853,490 | 85.3% |
| 9 | $836,755 | 83.7% |
| 10 | $820,348 | 82.0% |
| 11 | $804,263 | 80.4% |
| 12 | $788,493 | 78.8% |
| 13 | $773,033 | 77.3% |
| 14 | $757,875 | 75.8% |
| 15 | $743,015 | 74.3% |
| 16 | $728,446 | 72.8% |
| 17 | $714,163 | 71.4% |
| 18 | $700,159 | 70.0% |
| 19 | $686,431 | 68.6% |
| 20 | $672,971 | 67.3% |
| 21 | $659,776 | 66.0% |
| 22 | $646,839 | 64.7% |
| 23 | $634,156 | 63.4% |
| 24 | $621,721 | 62.2% |
| 25 | $609,531 | 61.0% |
| 26 | $597,579 | 59.8% |
| 27 | $585,862 | 58.6% |
| 28 | $574,375 | 57.4% |
| 29 | $563,112 | 56.3% |
| 30 | $552,071 | 55.2% |