The Life of a Dollar
The slow death of a dollar.
In 1913 a dollar was a dollar. Today it's worth a few cents. Pick a year and watch what a single dollar quietly became. No login. No advice. Just what your money is doing.
$0.00
$1
Year—
$1 then = today—
$1 today = then—
What a dollar actually bought.
Charts and percentages are easy to ignore. A stamp, a gallon of gas, a year of college — those you remember. Here is what the same things cost then and now, and how that stacks up against inflation alone.
110 years, one shrinking dollar.
Every spike, war, and crisis left a mark on what a dollar buys. The numbers below are computed live from real CPI-U data — not invented.