A number of websites have an inflation calculator, that will tell you how much a dollar in a bygone year would buy today. Here is a link to one from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:CPI Inflation Calculator
The Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve Bank has a similar calculator at its web site: The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
I remember my father telling me a story of a carpenter who had lived through the Great Depression, trying to find work. When the economy improved after WWII, he saved every penny that he could from his paycheck, doing the best that he could do, and that amounted to maybe five dollars a week. By the time he retired many years later working well into his 70s, he still did not have enough money since everything that he managed to save was still not enough to pay the bills due to inflation.
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