How prices have changed since 1950
A gallon of gas cost about $0.27 in 1950 and about $3.20 today, a 12x rise. A loaf of bread went from $0.14 to $4.50, a 32x rise. A postage stamp went from 3 cents to 73 cents. The average house went from about $7,354 to about $420,000, a 57x rise. The general price level, measured by CPI-U, rose about 13.8x across the same period.
Which items beat inflation
Compare each item with the 13.8x rise in the general price level since 1950. Houses (57x), bread (32x), new cars (32x) and movie tickets (30x) rose faster. Gas (12x) and milk (5x) rose slower. Coffee shows the biggest jump because a cup cost a nickel in 1950 and a café price is far higher now. A price that beats inflation means the item got more expensive in real terms, not only in dollars.
Why a 1990 dollar buys less today
Inflation lowers what a dollar buys each year. CPI-U tracks the cost of a fixed basket of goods and services. If the index was 130.7 in 1990 and has averaged 331.7 so far in 2026, the same basket costs about 2.54 times as much. The inflation calculator above applies that ratio to any amount and any of the 8 decades.
How to read the table
Prices alone don't show whether life got harder to afford. Wages also rose over these decades, so a 57x rise in house prices does not mean a 57x harder purchase. Use the table to see the direction and size of each change, and compare it with the general inflation rate to see which costs outran the average.