Mar

26

An embarassment of riches

Filed Under History, Social Studies 

Do you ever have your students find out that somewhere in the past someone made ten dollars and then the kids wondered what that would be worth today? Well, a long time ago I discovered a Canadian site that would help figure out how much something in the past would cost today after inflation was figured in. I’ve recently discovered two sites that will do that for American history

The Inflation Calculator will allow you to figure out the effect of inflation with amounts as far back as 1800 while the Cost of Living Calculator only goes as far back as 1913. The two sites come up with slightly different results for the same year and the same amount of money. I’m not completely sure why since they both seem to be basing their data on the same information from the U.S. Department of Labor, but maybe I’m missing something there.

Even with the slight variation, it’s nice to have both sites available in case one goes down. It also lends a voice of authority to papers your students may right if they can cite two sources for their currency conversions.

Of course, none of this can really show that today we have a standard of living that no one would have dreamed of 50 or 100 years ago. Straight currency updating doesn’t quite factor that in, and I can’t conceive of a website that could take that into account.

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