The Richwood Report

While you were looking at allmeasures.com, the web-based converter for engineering units, I hope you didn't miss the money converter. Click on the box marked "Money (currencies and inflation)' and then the button marked "Converter". You will be taken to a large spreadsheet where you can enter values for money and convert them to the same amount in another year adjusted for inflation. The converter works both forward and backward and you will see values for all years simultaneously. For fun, the Richwood Reporter checked out the wages for his first manufacturing job in 1970. He was a tack-welder in a plant making railroad cars and made $2.83/hour. This was better than common labor which paid $2.60 and not as good as a production welder who made $3.27. The converter said that to make money for the same standard of living today, these rates would be about $12.50, $11.49, and $14.45, respectively. The converter also references all values to the year1914 which marked the beginning of WWI and the effective end of the gold standard. The $2.83 figure amounted to just $0.75/hour then!
The Consumer Price Index is based on the price of common consumer items and is an effort to show a standard value for a given standard of living in any given year. You may read more about it here. Money is only worth what you can buy with it and while a suit of clothes or a steak dinner is the same as in 1970, their prices have certainly changed.