$100 in 1981 is worth $320.65 today

Buying power of $100 in 1981

This chart shows a calculation of buying power equivalence for $100 in 1981 (price index tracking began in 1914).

For example, if you started with $100, you would need to end with $320.65 in order to "adjust" for inflation (sometimes refered to as "beating inflation").

When $100 is equivalent to $320.65 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 1981 dollars, the chart below shows how $100 is worth less over 43 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 1981 amounts in today's dollars, based on the 220.65% change in prices:

How to calculate inflation rate for $100 since 1981

Our calculations use the following inflation rate formula to calculate the change in value between 1981 and today:

Then plug in historical CPI values. The Canadian CPI was 49.525 in the year 1981 and 158.8 in 2024:

$100 in 1981 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as $320.65 in 2024.

To get the total inflation rate for the 43 years between 1981 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.