Eli5: How can money increase in value over time without changing?

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Excuse the weird title, but I think a. Example should make it clearer, when people say: person A had money in 1900, say 100,000$, that is equal to 1,000,000$ in todays money?

How does that work?
Or what do they mean exactly?

Like if my Great grandfather had 1 million that remained untouched till this day shouldn’t that 1 million remain as a 1 million even today?

In: Economics

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

In general, money loses buying power over time. This is called inflation.

> Example should make it clearer, when people say: person A had money in 1900, say 100,000$, that is equal to 1,000,000$ in todays money?

In this example, the work needed to get 100,000$ in 1900 would be equivalent to the work to get 1,000,000$ today. Or in other words, the buying power of 100,000$ in 1900 would be equivalent to the buying power of 1,000,000$ today.

> Like if my Great grandfather had 1 million that remained untouched till this day shouldn’t that 1 million remain as a 1 million even today?

Yes, but what your grandfather could buy with 1 million is much more than what you can buy with the same million.

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