Last updated September 19, 2026

How the clocks and calculators work

Every figure on Inflation Money starts from an official data point with a date attached. This page explains how the clocks move between releases, what the calculators compute and how estimates are labelled.

The money clocks

Each clock begins at the latest published value of its series, for example the Treasury's Debt to the Penny figure. Between releases the clock projects forward from that observation at the series' recent annual pace, spread evenly over the time elapsed since the observation date. The ticking number is a projection, not a live reading. When a new snapshot is published the clock re-anchors to it.

The annual pace comes from the source data. For the national debt it is the change between the latest Treasury row and the row roughly a year earlier, divided by the elapsed time, which smooths out single-day swings. Series reported at a point in time, such as CPI index levels, M2, GDP and the gold and Bitcoin comparisons, show their latest published value and do not tick.

The calculators

The inflation calculator multiplies an amount by the end-year CPI-U index and divides by the start-year index. The inflation loss calculator applies an annual inflation rate to a cash balance held over a period. The rate can be the latest 12-month CPI-U change, the annualised CPI-U change over the last 3, 5 or 10 years, or a custom figure, compounded annually. Purchasing power at the end equals the starting balance divided by (1 + rate) raised to the number of years; the loss is the difference between the nominal balance and that figure. If the cash earns a yield, the calculator compounds (1 + yield) / (1 + rate) instead.

The market comparison

The market returns comparison rebases every selected asset to $10,000 on the first month all of them share, then tracks that $10,000 forward using monthly data. The inflation-adjusted view divides each value by the change in CPI-U since the start month, so the lines show real purchasing power rather than nominal dollars.

Refresh cadence

A scheduled job fetches the source series, regenerates JSON snapshots and commits them to the site. Daily series such as the national debt and the Bitcoin price update with each run; monthly and quarterly series change only when the agency publishes a new observation. Every metric carries an "as of" date. Your browser caches the snapshots in localStorage; the privacy settings page explains how to clear that cache.

How estimates are labelled

Figures that are computed rather than reported, such as debt per household, are labelled as estimates where they appear. The methodology page lists every source, series and formula, with known limitations.