A place to find what things cost (where and when)

Factual Questions
#1

I am trying to find an accurate site that will let me know two things.

  1. What things cost back when. For example Ralph Kramden earns $42.00 a week. What would that be in today’s money.

  2. What the cost of living is in different cities. For example if I make $40,000 a year in Chicago, how much would I need to make in San Francisco to have the same standard of living.

I only found one site so far (for #2) and it can’t be accurate. It was saying that if I make $40,000 I would need to make $22,000 in San Diego and $43,000 in San Francisco. I know that can’t be write.

Thanx

#2

I ran a google search for Cost of Living comparisons, and got several sites for your second question. http://www.homefair.com/homefair/cmr/salcalc.html

The first one? Well, let me hunt a bit more and get back to you.

#3

Found it! I knew I’d seen this somewhere-it may not be exactly what you are looking for but http://www.aier.org/colcalc.html has a calculator that tells you how much a given $$ amount was worth in a given year. The year range is 1913 to present.

Hope these help.

#4

I use an inflation calculator that goes back to 1800. Mine syas $42 in 1955 would be worth about $260 today, and Lsura’s says about $270. Other sites are availible that calculate inflation in U.S. currency as far backa 1720, and British currency as far back as 1660. See Current Value of Old Money

#5

There is no agreed-upon cost-of-living index for comparing cities. Every site seems to use its own index, based on whatever data they think is important.

Lsura’s link says $40K in Chicago corresponds to $30K in San Diego or $44K in San Francisco. Monstermoving says $40K in Chicago corresponds to $33K in San Diego and $52K in San Francisco. You can find a large number of sites that list their cost-of-living indexes by searching Google for “cost of living index” “New York” “San Francisco” Chicago