The dollar has lost ~98% of its value since 1913

One figure, fully defensible

Since 1913, the dollar has lost about 98% of its value.

Measured in the real prices of real things — using CPI's own basket and weights, but swapping the government's imagined-rent housing guess for the actual price of a home.

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of the 1913 dollar's purchasing power — gone

$1.00 in 1913→ —

The 1913 Index

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real prices · dollar lost —

Official CPI

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government figure · dollar lost —

Cite it like you'd cite CPI: “According to the 1913 Index, the U.S. dollar has lost roughly — of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913 — a — rise in the real price of goods, versus the — the official CPI reports.”

The one swap that drives the gap

We keep CPI's own eight-group basket and its own weights — so this is apples-to-apples, not a cherry-pick. We change exactly one thing, in the open:

Housing. CPI fills about a third of its entire index with Owners' Equivalent Rent — a survey asking homeowners to imagine what their home would rent for. We replace that imagined figure with the real sale price of a home. That single transparent swap is the core of the gap.

The three tricks CPI uses to shrink the number

Technique	What BLS does	What it means
Owners' Equivalent Rent	Surveys homeowners to imagine a rent	Systematically understates housing inflation. ~34% of CPI is a guess.
Substitution	Assumes you switch to cheaper goods when prices rise	Measures a falling standard of living as "stable prices."
Hedonic adjustment	Discounts prices for "quality improvements"	A $2,000 laptop "costs less" because it's faster. Your wallet disagrees.

We don't apply these techniques. We ask the blunter question: how much more does the same thing cost in dollars?

Every category, by how much it really rose

Each bar is a category's real price increase since 1913. Red = rose faster than the government's own overall number (where the pain is). Green = roughly in line or cheaper — where CPI is basically fair, and we say so.

Worse than CPI admitsIn line or cheaperright number = × since 1913 · faint = CPI weight

Where we agree with the government — and where we don't

✓ CPI is basically fair here

Food has risen roughly in line with the official number, and several goods — electronics, clothing, some appliances — are genuinely cheaper, in dollars and in hours of work. Credibility is the point, so we say so plainly.

✗ This is where it hurts

The gap is concentrated in housing, healthcare, and college — the things that decide whether a life feels affordable. That's the part the single headline number buries.

We don't hide the parts that cut against us. Browse the full dataset →

The second anchor — 1971

1913 (the Fed's founding) is the headline anchor. The second is 1971, when the dollar's last tie to gold was cut — the sound-money story in one comparison:

Since 1971 · 1913 Index — Official CPI —

Full methodology → · Browse all prices →