Did your raise beat inflation?
Compare your pay increase with inflation to see how your purchasing power may have changed.
Your result
Fill in the form and press Calculate to see your result.
Sources: OECD Taxing Wages 2026; World Bank PPP conversion factor (PA.NUS.PRVT.PP) and official exchange rate (PA.NUS.FCRF). Reference year 2025. Estimates for a single employee without children. Inflation: World Bank consumer prices (FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG); wages: OECD average annual wages, 2015–2025. These figures reflect the latest officially published data (reference year 2025) and are not outdated — official statistics for a given year are published with this kind of international lag. This tool is updated periodically as new official data is published. Data as of 2025, last checked October 3, 2026. The official source is checked automatically; if it is unavailable, the last verified figures stay in use.
How it works
Enter your salary before and after a raise, and the tool compares your percentage increase against your country's Consumer Price Index (CPI) change over the same period, to show whether your real purchasing power grew or shrank — not just your nominal pay.
Why does a raise sometimes count as a "loss"?
If prices rose 6% over the period and your raise was 4%, your nominal pay went up, but what that pay can actually buy went down — you'd need a 6%+ raise just to stay even in real terms.
FAQ
What CPI figure does this use?
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Your country's national Consumer Price Index from World Bank data, refreshed daily — a broad basket of goods and services, not your personal spending pattern.
Is a raise below inflation always a bad outcome?
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Not necessarily — it might still reflect a genuine improvement if paired with a promotion, better benefits, or reduced working hours. This tool measures purchasing power only, not overall career value.
What if my raise happened partway through the year?
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Use the start and end years that match when each salary applied — the tool compares CPI change across full years, not partial-year dates.
Limitations
National CPI is an average — your personal cost-of-living increase may be higher or lower depending on your spending, especially if housing (which can rise faster than the general CPI) makes up a large share of your budget.