Buying power of $1,200 in 1940

This chart shows a calculation of buying power equivalence for $1,200 in 1940 (price index tracking began in 1914).

For example, if you started with $1,200, you would need to end with $24,198.62 in order to "adjust" for inflation (sometimes refered to as "beating inflation").

When $1,200 is equivalent to $24,198.62 over time, that means that the "real value" of a single Canadian dollar decreases over time. In other words, a dollar will pay for fewer items at the store.

This effect explains how inflation erodes the value of a dollar over time. By calculating the value in 1940 dollars, the chart below shows how $1,200 is worth less over 84 years.

According to Statistics Canada, each of these CAD amounts below is equal in terms of what it could buy at the time:

This conversion table shows various other 1940 amounts in 2024 dollars, based on the 1,916.55% change in prices:

How to calculate inflation rate for $1,200, 1940 to 2024

Our calculations use the following inflation rate formula to calculate the change in value between 1940 and 2024:

Then plug in historical CPI values. The Canadian CPI was 7.975 in the year 1940 and 160.82 in 2024:

$1,200 in 1940 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as $24,198.62 in 2024.

To get the total inflation rate for the 84 years between 1940 and 2024, we use the following formula:

Plugging in the values to this equation, we get:

Data source & citation

Raw data for these calculations comes from the government of Canada's annual Consumer Price Index (CPI), established in 1914 and computed by Statistics Canada (StatCan).

» Read more about inflation and investment.