# What would be the prize value in today's terms

If a $1 million dollar competitions came out roughly in 1985. Would would the equivalent prize money be today? Many thanks! - Do you have information about the inflation rate to use? Otherwise, this problem is pretty much unsolvable. – Johannes Kloos May 21 '12 at 12:58 Seems to me you just 'want the answer'. In that case you might as well use 146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl or similar results on google. – M.B. May 21 '12 at 12:58 In what country? – Qiaochu Yuan May 21 '12 at 12:58 I think he just wants some estimate for inflation. Basically probably what he is looking for is$\$1,000,000 \times (1.05)^{27}=\$3,700,000$approximately. – picakhu May 21 '12 at 13:13 – Neal May 21 '12 at 13:29 ## 1 Answer The Current Value of Old Money is a useful site for this purpose. The answer specifically to this question is approximately$2 million (depending on how you calculate it).

USA's CPI calculation is probably most relevant to you - as this measures inflation (in the US) according to the value of typical household purchases. (So, to be more precise, you might consider a different CPI that reflects relevant luxury purchases) Anyway, \$2.09 million is a sensible value to choose from this table. Note that it's 2012, so you might consider adding ~2.4% for this year's CPI, giving you \$2.14 million.

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Thanks everyone. I just wanted a rough idea of what that value might be in today's terms. –  SixfootJames May 21 '12 at 17:11