About InflationVault

InflationVault is a historical price archive. We collect, verify, and publish long-run data on the cost of everyday things — gas, groceries, housing, cars, wages — going back decades.

The goal is simple: make it easy for anyone to see how prices have actually changed over time, with real numbers, proper inflation-adjustment, and zero paywalls.

Everyone has an opinion about whether things are more expensive now. Most of those opinions are based on memory, vibes, and anecdotes from relatives. We wanted something better.

Government data on prices is thorough but scattered across multiple agencies, buried in PDF reports, and formatted for statisticians rather than normal people. InflationVault pulls that data together, makes it searchable and visual, and lets you draw your own conclusions.

No paywalls, no spin. Just the numbers.

All of our data comes from official U.S. government sources and reputable industry organizations:

• Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) — Consumer Price Index (CPI-U), average retail prices, employment data
• U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) — Gasoline, natural gas, electricity, and heating oil prices
• U.S. Census Bureau / HUD — Median home prices, housing starts, construction costs
• Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) — Personal consumption expenditures, GDP deflators
• Department of Labor — Federal minimum wage history, wage and hour data
• Kelley Blue Book / NADA — New vehicle transaction prices

We use annual average prices wherever possible, drawn directly from the sources listed above. Inflation adjustment is done using the CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers), the most widely used measure of general inflation in the United States.

For a deeper explanation of how we process data, handle gaps, and compute inflation-adjusted figures, see our full methodology page.