Is your salary beating
inflation?
Enter your salary now and what you earned before — this calculator uses official BLS CPI data (through July 2026) to show your REAL raise, after inflation. Free, no signup.
Read the full answer — method, rates and figures
Quick answer: A salary that went from $70,000 in 2021 to $85,000 today grew +21.4% in nominal terms. Prices (CPI-U) rose +23.2% between 2021 and July 2026, so the real change is -1.5% — purchasing power FELL despite the raise.
The 2021 salary would need to be $86,261 today just to buy the same things. US-wide, wages rose +3.15% over the 12 months to July 2026 against +3.36% inflation — a real change of -0.20%.
Sources: BLS CES and CPI-U, pulled 2026-08-30.
Nominal change
+21.4%
Inflation since 2021
+23.2%
Your REAL change
-1.5%
Your 2021 salary of $70,000 would need to be $86,261 today just to buy the same things (prices +23.2% since 2021, CPI-U through July 2026). Against your actual $85,000, you are $1,261 a year behind inflation.
See if your money keeps up, not just your pay
Inflation hits savings as well as salaries. Richify tracks your income, savings and investments together, so you can see whether your whole net worth is growing in real terms.
Your real change
-1.5%
Behind inflation a year
$1,261
Needed today to keep up
$86,261
Prices since 2021
+23.2%
Written by Lily, Richify's AI Financial Teacher — an AI author, presented as one · our editorial standards
Last reviewed 13 October 2026 by the Richify AI agent team.
Reviewed by Felix, Richify's AI CFO — an AI author, presented as one.
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Track your real wealth — 7-day free trialHow it works
The calculator divides your salary growth by price growth over the same window. Your nominal factor is today's salary ÷ your 2021 salary. The price factor is the latest CPI-U reading (July 2026: 333.9) ÷ the 2021 annual average (271.0). Real growth is the first divided by the second, minus one. Both series come straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics API — average hourly earnings (CES) for the national context, CPI-U for prices — pulled 2026-08-30, no third-party estimates in between.
One honest caveat: CPI-U is a national urban average basket. If your own spending skews toward categories that moved differently — rent in a hot market, childcare, health insurance — your personal inflation rate differs from the headline, and your real result with it.
Are US wages keeping up with inflation? The record, year by year
Average hourly earnings growth vs CPI-U inflation, calendar-year averages. The real column is what the average paycheck actually gained or lost in buying power.
| Year | Wage growth | Inflation | Real wages |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | +3.3% | +1.8% | +1.5% |
| 2020 | +4.9% | +1.2% | +3.6% |
| 2021 | +4.3% | +4.7% | -0.4% |
| 2022 | +5.4% | +8.0% | -2.4% |
| 2023 | +4.5% | +4.1% | +0.3% |
| 2024 | +4.0% | +2.9% | +1.1% |
| 2025 | +4.0% | +2.6% | +1.3% |
| 12 months to Jul 2026 | +3.2% | +3.4% | -0.2% |
Sources: BLS Current Employment Statistics, average hourly earnings, total private (CES0500000003); BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, all items (CUUR0000SA0). Pulled 2026-08-30; annual figures are calendar-year averages (2025 CPI averages 11 months — the October 2025 release is absent from the API). The 12-month row compares July 2026 with a year earlier.
The shape of the story: nominal wage growth has been strong for years — it was the pricesthat moved. 2022's +5.4% wage growth was the fastest in decades and still lost 2.4% of buying power to 8% inflation. The 2023–2025 recovery clawed back roughly +2.7% cumulatively, and the latest twelve months have slipped marginally negative again.
For hourly workers, one way to keep more of each raise from 2025 through 2028 is the federal overtime deduction: the premium part of time-and-a-half is deductible on Schedule 1-A. The no tax on overtime calculator shows how much it saves at your income.
What a raise is really worth: three quick examples
All computed with the table above, comparing against prices through July 2026:
- $70,000 in 2021 → $85,000 today. Nominal +21.4%; prices +23.2% since 2021. Real: ≈ −1.5%. A fifteen-thousand-dollar raise that buys slightly less than the old salary did.
- $60,000 in 2019 → $80,000 today. Nominal +33.3%; prices +30.6% since 2019. Real: ≈ +2.1%. Seven years, barely ahead — which is the honest national story too.
- $100,000 in 2023 → $110,000 today. Nominal +10.0%; prices +9.6% since 2023. Real: ≈ +0.4%. A double-digit raise over three years ≈ treading water.
How to use this calculator
- Enter your current annual salary (gross, before tax).
- Pick the comparison year — when your old salary was set. The calculator knows the average price level of every year back to 2018.
- Enter what you earned in that year.
- Read your result: your nominal growth, inflation over the same window (CPI-U, through July 2026), your real growth, and what your old salary would need to be today just to buy the same things.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Are US wages keeping up with inflation in 2026?
Barely — over the twelve months to July 2026, average hourly earnings rose +3.15% while CPI-U inflation ran +3.36%, a real-wage change of -0.20%. The average American worker's pay is roughly treading water against prices.
That follows three positive years: real wages grew about +0.3% in 2023, +1.1% in 2024 and +1.3% in 2025 after the deep losses of 2021 (−0.4%) and 2022 (−2.4%), when inflation hit 8%. Averages hide a lot — job-switchers and lower-wage sectors have seen faster growth — which is why this calculator works from YOUR salary rather than the average.
How do I calculate my real wage growth?
Divide your current salary by your old salary to get your nominal growth factor, then divide that by the price-level factor over the same period (today's CPI ÷ CPI when you earned the old salary). Subtract 1 and you have your real growth.
Example: your pay went from $70,000 in 2021 to $85,000 today — a nominal factor of 1.214. Prices rose about 23.2% over the same window, a factor of 1.232.
Your real change is 1.214 ÷ 1.232 − 1 ≈ −1.5% — a $15,000 raise that actually bought you slightly less. This calculator does exactly that arithmetic with official BLS CPI data.
What was the worst year for US real wages?
In the recent record, 2022: average hourly earnings grew +5.4% — the fastest nominal growth in decades — while CPI inflation ran +8.0%, so the average real wage FELL about 2.4%. It is the clearest recent example of why a big raise can still be a pay cut: the number on your payslip grew faster than ever at exactly the moment it bought less. 2021 was also negative (−0.4%).
The recovery came in 2023–2025, with real growth of roughly +0.3%, +1.1% and +1.3%.
What raise do I need just to keep up with inflation?
A raise equal to the inflation rate keeps your purchasing power flat — over the last twelve months that meant about 3.4%. Anything below that is a real-terms pay cut even though the dollar figure went up; anything above it is real growth.
Two practical notes: compare against inflation over the period since your LAST raise, not just the latest month's headline; and remember tax brackets and benefit thresholds don't always move with inflation, so your after-tax real change can differ from the pre-tax one.
Why does this use average hourly earnings and CPI-U?
They are the two headline official series. Average hourly earnings (BLS Current Employment Statistics, all private employees) is the broadest monthly measure of what US employers pay; CPI-U (all items, US city average) is the headline inflation index.
Both are published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and pulled directly from the BLS API for this page — no third-party estimates. Limits worth knowing: the earnings series is an average across everyone working, so it moves when the mix of jobs changes (in April 2020 it spiked because low-wage workers lost jobs first), and CPI-U measures a national urban basket that may not match your personal spending.
Is Richify free, and what does it add beyond this calculator?
Richify is free to download on the App Store and Google Play and comes with a 7-day free trial. This page tells you whether your salary kept up with prices; the app tracks the other side — whether your NET WORTH is keeping up, across accounts, investments and retirement savings, with AI agents that answer questions like 'am I actually getting ahead?' using your real numbers.
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Further Reading
Your salary is one number. Your wealth is the whole picture.
Richify tracks whether your NET WORTH is beating inflation — accounts, investments and retirement in one place, with AI that answers 'am I actually getting ahead?'
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