What did it cost the year you were born?

Your birth year. Any year from 1913.

Compare with this year. Income figures end in 2025. 2026 means January to August 2026.

Groceries. The basket is one unit of each of 11 foods: a pound of flour, a loaf of white bread, a dozen eggs, half a gallon of milk, and a pound each of butter, ground coffee, sugar, round steak, potatoes, bacon and pork chops. It is not what a household buys. No number exists for a food in a year it was not published. Food prices in these files start in 1917 and are missing for 1919, 1930, 1978 and 1979.

Then, in the year you were born. Prices and pay are national averages, so what you paid in a particular town differed. Factory pay is for production workers in manufacturing. 2026 means January to August 2026.

Pay and income. After-tax pay is a federal estimate for one single worker: income tax, Social Security and Medicare, no state tax and no credits. Median weekly pay starts in 1979, household income in 1967 and family income in 1947; income figures end in 2025.

Gasoline, a car, a home and rent. The car price is the government’s average for passenger cars only (US$34,101 in 2026); Kelley Blue Book, a company, reports about US$50,000 for all new vehicles, which is the company’s own figure. Car prices start in 1967 and home prices in 1963. The entry-level Ford is shown only for the 18 years in the files. Gasoline from 1935 to 1975 is partly estimated. The rent index is a price index, not a rent in dollars.

In work time. Hours of work use factory pay after tax for one single worker; weeks of take-home pay use factory weekly pay after tax; years of household income use the median household income of that year.