Annual US consumer-price inflation, 2000–2025 — the yearly rate, with the long-run average and recent spikes. ✓ BLS CPI
Annual CPI-U inflation. The dashed line is the Fed's 2% target.
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| Year ▼ | Inflation rate |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2.6% |
| 2024 | 2.9% |
| 2023 | 4.1% |
| 2022 | 8.0% |
| 2021 | 4.7% |
| 2020 | 1.2% |
| 2019 | 1.8% |
| 2018 | 2.4% |
| 2017 | 2.1% |
| 2016 | 1.3% |
| 2015 | 0.1% |
| 2014 | 1.6% |
| 2013 | 1.5% |
| 2012 | 2.1% |
| 2011 | 3.2% |
| 2010 | 1.6% |
| 2009 | -0.4% |
| 2008 | 3.8% |
| 2007 | 2.8% |
| 2006 | 3.2% |
| 2005 | 3.4% |
| 2004 | 2.7% |
| 2003 | 2.3% |
| 2002 | 1.6% |
| 2001 | 2.8% |
| 2000 | 3.4% |
Inflation measures how fast prices rise. Over 2000–2025, US consumer-price inflation averaged around 2.6% a year, but it swung widely — briefly negative in 2009 during the financial crisis, and spiking to 8% in 2022, the highest in four decades, before cooling back toward the Federal Reserve's 2% target. The 2021–2022 surge was driven by pandemic supply-chain disruptions, strong demand and energy prices.
Inflation erodes purchasing power — a dollar buys a little less each year. To keep up, savings and investments generally need to earn more than the inflation rate. See what a past amount is worth in today's money with our inflation calculator (which uses live BLS CPI data), and plan real returns with the compound interest calculator.
These figures use the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI-U), the standard US measure. Other countries publish their own — the UK's CPI, Canada's CPI and Australia's CPI — which can differ from the US in any given year, though central banks in these countries also target around 2%.
Each figure here is a year-over-year change in the Consumer Price Index, published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures the change in cost of a fixed basket of goods and services, weighted by what urban consumers actually buy — housing carries by far the largest weight, which is why shelter costs move the headline number more than any individual price does.
A falling inflation rate does not mean falling prices. It means prices are still rising, only more slowly. Prices fall only when the rate goes negative, which is rare and generally a symptom of something worse. This distinction accounts for most of the gap between reported inflation and how expensive things feel: the level stays high even after the rate comes down.
The series also describes an average that matches almost nobody. A household spending a large share of income on rent or fuel experiences a quite different rate from the published one. That is why the index works well for adjusting historical sums into today's money, and poorly as a description of any particular family's cost of living.