Live tool · Official BLS & Federal Reserve data
The Live Inflation Clock
Inflation does not arrive once a month. It runs every second. Enter an amount and watch its buying power drain in real time, at the rate the official data says prices are actually climbing.
Running at 3.30% a yearCPI-U, 12-month
What $10,000.00 still buys
$10,000.000000Your money has held its number. Its buying power has not. This is what $10,000.00 from July 2026 is worth today, in that month's dollars, at the selected rate.
Clock settings
Cash, a savings balance, a salary, a house price. Anything whose number stays fixed while prices move.
Which inflation rate should the clock run at?
There is no single "the" inflation rate. Each of these is an official measure of a different thing. The headline CPI-U rate is the default; the short-window rates react faster to what prices are doing right now.
Negative rates model deflation: the clock reverses and counts buying power gained.
CPI-U, 12-month
The headline U.S. inflation rate: the change in the Consumer Price Index over the last twelve months.
Measured from July 2025 to July 2026.
BLS CPI-U (CPIAUCSL via FRED)
Latest CPI-U index: 332.813 (July 2026), 1982-84 = 100.
What inflation takes, per unit of time
Every row is the same annual rate, compounded over a different interval. The per-second figure is small enough to ignore and large enough that, repeated 31,557,600 times, it becomes the per-year figure at the bottom.
| Interval | Buying power lost | Share of the amount |
|---|
How this clock works
A published rate, compounded down to the second
Inflation is measured monthly, not continuously. The Bureau of Labor Statistics prices a basket of goods and publishes the Consumer Price Index once a month, weeks after the fact. So no clock anywhere can tell you what prices did in the last second: that number does not exist yet, and will not for weeks.
What this clock does instead is honest and useful. It takes the most recent official rate, treats it as the pace prices are currently running at, and spreads it across time by compounding. A fixed amount of money A has the buying power of A ÷ (1 + r)t after t years at annual rate r, so the value lost over any interval is A × (1 − (1 + r)−t).
That compounding matters. Dividing 3.3% of $10,000 evenly across a year would say inflation costs you $330. It does not: it costs $319.46, because each moment's loss applies to money that has already shrunk slightly. Add up the per-second figure on this page 31,557,600 times and you land exactly on the per-year figure. A straight-line clock would not.
Why the big number keeps moving
The main readout is anchored to the month the selected rate ends on, not to the moment you loaded the page. It answers a real question: what is money from that CPI reading worth now? That is why it already sits below your entered amount when the page opens, and why it keeps sliding while you watch. The middle odometer is the page-session figure, starting at zero the moment you arrived.
Which rate to trust
The 12-month CPI-U change is the headline number, the one quoted in the news, and the default here. It is also slow: it averages in prices from a year ago. The 3-month annualized rate is the same index read over a shorter window, so it turns faster when inflation shifts. Core CPI and the PCE price index strip out food and energy or reweight the basket, and are what the Federal Reserve actually watches. Cleveland Fed expected inflation is the odd one out: it is a forecast, not a measurement.
Every rate on this page carries the observation it ends on and the observation it is measured from. Figures are projections from published data, not official statistics, and nothing here is financial advice. Methodology · Report a correction.
Keep going
Inflation loss calculator · Inflation calculator by year · Dollar purchasing power since 1913 · What purchasing power actually means · All live clocks
Questions
Live inflation clock FAQ
Is there a live inflation clock?
Yes, this one. It takes the latest official U.S. inflation rate, compounds it down to the second, and applies it to any amount you enter. Inflation itself is not measured second by second; the clock spreads a published annual rate across the interval since that reading.
How much does inflation cost me per second?
At 3.3% annual inflation, $10,000 loses about $0.0000103 of buying power per second, $0.037 per hour, $0.89 per day, $6.22 per week, $27.02 per month, and $319.46 per year. Enter your own amount above to see your figures.
What data does the clock use?
Every rate comes from an official source: CPI-U and Core CPI from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the PCE price index from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and one-year expected inflation from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, all retrieved through FRED. Each option shows its own as-of date and measurement window.
Why is the per-second figure not the annual rate divided by seconds?
Because inflation compounds. The clock uses loss = amount × (1 − (1 + rate)−t), where t is the interval as a fraction of a year. Splitting 3.3% of $10,000 evenly would say $330 a year; the compounding figure is $319.46, and it is the one that adds back up correctly from seconds to a full year.
Which inflation rate is the best estimate right now?
The 12-month CPI-U change is the official headline rate and the default. For where inflation is running at this moment, the 3-month annualized rate reacts faster. Core CPI and the PCE price index are what the Federal Reserve watches, and Cleveland Fed expected inflation looks forward rather than back.
Does the clock work for deflation?
Yes. Enter a negative custom rate and the clock reverses: the readout turns green and counts buying power gained rather than lost. If an official series ever prints a negative annual rate, the clock handles it the same way.
How long until my money is worth half as much?
At 3.3% inflation, money loses half its buying power in about 21.3 years. At the Federal Reserve's 2% target it takes about 35 years, and at 5% about 14.2 years. The clock shows this figure for whichever rate you select.
Is this financial advice?
No. This is an educational tool built on public data. It projects a published inflation rate forward and cannot predict what inflation will actually do.