Salary Inflation Calculator
Find out what your salary should be today after inflation.
Use our free salary inflation calculator to find out if your pay has kept up with rising costs. Enter your salary and start year to see what you should be earning today — calculated using Truflation's real-time inflation index, not government CPI. Find out how much purchasing power you've lost since 2020.
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To match your 2020 salary of $50.0k, you should be earning
$64,000
+28.0%based on real inflation, not government CPI
According to Truflation's inflation data, my salary of $50,000 from 2020 should be $64,000 today to maintain the same purchasing power. That's a $14,000 gap (28.0% increase needed).
How this calculator works
This calculator uses the Truflation US CPI Aggregate Inflation Index for the United States and the Truflation UK CPI Aggregate Inflation Index for the United Kingdom to compute how much your salary should have grown to maintain the same purchasing power.
The calculation compounds inflation from your salary start year to the present. For example, if you started earning $50,000 in 2020, cumulative inflation of 28% means your salary should now be $64,000 to have the same buying power.
This tool is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or employment advice.
Frequently asked questions
Most employers give annual raises of 2-3%, which roughly tracks long-term inflation targets. However, actual inflation has been significantly higher in recent years — Truflation data shows cumulative inflation of 28% in the US and over 35% in the UK since 2020. When raises don't match actual inflation, your real purchasing power quietly shrinks each year.
The effect compounds: even a 1-2% annual shortfall adds up to a meaningful pay gap over just a few years. This calculator helps you quantify exactly how much ground you've lost.
A cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is a raise specifically designed to offset inflation. Some employers and government benefits (like US Social Security) include automatic COLAs, but many private-sector employers do not — or their raises fall short of actual inflation.
This calculator shows what a perfect COLA would look like: the salary you'd need today if every year's raise exactly matched inflation. The gap between that number and your actual salary is your real pay cut.
This calculator uses Truflation's aggregated inflation index, which tracks real-time price changes across a broad basket of goods and services. You can explore the underlying data on the Truflation marketplace.
Your personal inflation rate may differ depending on your spending patterns. For a more personalised calculation, try our personal inflation calculator.
