how i did this math
this is not financial advice. it is a historical price comparison, built entirely from public data. every number below traces back to a named source, and i am telling you exactly where the seams are, not just the parts that make the point look clean.
the comparison year
the comparison year is your birth year. i am using that as a stand in for roughly when your parents were the age you are now. it is a simplification, on purpose. asking for your parents' actual birth year would be one more field between you and an answer, and this assumption is close enough to be honest without being invasive.
why not just inflation
if i only adjusted your salary using the consumer price index, the number would understate how much the squeeze actually is. housing, childcare, and a public four year degree have all gotten more expensive faster than everyday goods have. so instead of one inflation number, the tool builds a weighted basket:
- housing, 40 percent of the weight (50 percent if you do not have kids, more if you also do not have a degree): median home price against median income, in your metro, then versus now.
- childcare, 20 percent (0 percent if you do not have kids, redistributed to housing and everything else): a national growth rate applied to your state's current childcare cost.
- a public four year degree, 15 percent (0 percent if you do not have one, redistributed the same way): published tuition and fees history from the college board.
- everything else, the remaining weight: plain consumer price index.
the basket is really pricing what it costs to replicate your specific profile today, not a generic american life. a degree is part of that profile, the same way having kids is. so the degree question in the calculator is not a footnote, it changes the math: say yes, and the tool adds a real education line to your basket, priced from actual public college tuition history, at its full weight. say no, and that weight does not just vanish, it folds back into housing and general inflation, the same mechanism used when you say you do not have kids. either way the basket still adds up to the same 100 percent, it is just weighted toward what your life actually included.
the hero number is the gap between what you make and what you'd need today to have the same standing against that basket that your salary would have bought in the comparison year.
the sources
general inflation
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), U.S. city average, all items. mirrored by FRED. fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCNS
income
U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables, households (1967 to now) and families (1947 to now, used to cover the years before household data starts). households · families
home prices
U.S. Census Bureau's historical home value tables and 2023 housing report, plus the Federal Housing Finance Agency's House Price Index for the national and metro level trend since the mid 1970s. census home values · FHFA house price index
childcare
Economic Policy Institute, "Childcare Costs in the United States." their own site blocks automated access to the state by state table, so these figures come from a compiled version of the same data, checked against a second independent source for accuracy. epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states
the line about childcare growing at nearly twice the pace of inflation since 1990 is often credited to EPI, but that specific claim does not actually appear on their site. it traces back to a BLS consumer price index sub index for day care and preschool, analyzed by KPMG and reported by ABC News. same number, correct source.
college
College Board, Trends in College Pricing, published tuition and fees for public four year in state schools, back to 1971. research.collegeboard.org/trends/college-pricing
what this doesn't capture
a few honest limits, so you know exactly what you're looking at:
- metro level income data has a real, public gap between 1989 and today. the tool fills it by shaping the missing years off the national income trend, anchored to the real numbers on both sides, not by inventing a data point.
- childcare costs are tracked by state, not by metro, because that is the finest public breakdown that exists.
- a handful of metros have small quirks from decades of shifting metro area boundaries. none of it changes the shape of the answer, and all of it is documented in the underlying data.
that's the whole method. no hidden multiplier, no vibes based guess. if a number looks off, the math is public, not a black box.
← do your own math