Buying power of $1 in 2020

This chart shows a calculation of buying power equivalence for $1 in 2020 (price index tracking began in 1914).

For example, if you started with $1, you would need to end with $1.15 in order to "adjust" for inflation (sometimes refered to as "beating inflation").

When $1 is equivalent to $1.15 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 2020 dollars, the chart below shows how $1 is worth less over 3 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 2020 amounts in 2023 dollars, based on the 14.71% change in prices:

How to calculate inflation rate for $1, 2020 to 2023

Our calculations use the following inflation rate formula to calculate the change in value between 2020 and 2023:

Then plug in historical CPI values. The Canadian CPI was 136.95833333333334 in the year 2020 and 157.11 in 2023:

$1 in 2020 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as $1.15 in 2023.

To get the total inflation rate for the 3 years between 2020 and 2023, 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.