Separate a Nominal Raise from a Supplied Price-Index Change — Free
A raise percentage and an inflation percentage do not subtract cleanly. Put the salary series and a dated, compatible price index on one register before discussing what changed in the compensation's modeled purchasing power.
The proof surface
Contractor-versus-salary cards compare work arrangements. This register instead reconciles a chronological salary series against an explicitly supplied price index, preserving nominal and deflated values without estimating taxes, benefits or a fair market salary.
InputReview code | year | annual salary | price index; price-index base for expressing comparable salary
Rare deviceContractor-versus-salary cards compare work arrangements. This register instead reconciles a chronological salary series against an explicitly supplied price index, preserving nominal and deflated values without estimating taxes, benefits or a fair market salary.
Output artifactLast-versus-first indexed salary change with row-by-row context
Cost$0 local calculation · no card, paid key, subscription or signup · proposed filing price is not for sale
Sample, not your facts: Illustrative inputs: North baseline | 2024 | 48000 | 100; North review | 2026 | 54000 | 112. Price-index base for expressing comparable salary = 100. Last-versus-first indexed salary change: 0.446429 % real endpoint change. All records are invented.
Before using the purchasing-power register
Use one currency, one annual-salary convention and one comparable price-index series across all rows. An index is a relative basket measure, not the inflation experienced by every household. Geographic coverage, period definition and revisions matter; obtain those details from your chosen source. The app does not fetch an official index or validate a salary statement. Years must be increasing from 1900 through 2200, and at least two observations are needed for endpoint change. Salary and index must both be positive. A base of 100 only sets the units of displayed deflated salaries. It does not imply that the first observation's index is 100, or that the tool has verified an inflation rate for that year.
Why the flat version breaks
Subtracting nominal and index percentages
A five-percent salary rise divided by a ten-percent index rise is 1.05/1.10 minus one, not five minus ten. Direct subtraction approximates small changes and can misstate larger ones. The register exposes the deflated endpoints rather than hiding the ratio behind an unqualified inflation-adjusted label.
Mixing an index with an inflation rate
An index level of 112 is not an inflation rate of 112%. This field needs comparable index levels, with their source base retained privately. Annual percentage changes must first be reconciled into a consistent index series outside the tool. Entering rates as indices can produce plausible-looking but meaningless salary values.
Calling the result everyone's cost-of-living change
A basket average does not mirror a particular person's housing, childcare or travel costs. The model also excludes taxes and benefits. State the index used, the period and the compensation measure, and resist turning a negative modeled change into an unsupported claim about wages owed or a guaranteed negotiation outcome.
How to work the purchasing-power register
Choose compatible source observations
Use an annual salary measure consistently: base salary is not interchangeable with total compensation or take-home pay. Select a price series covering the same broad periods and note whether observations are annual averages or particular months. Keep source links and private pay documents outside shared links; anonymous review codes and numeric amounts are sufficient here.
Enter an ordered series with its own indices
Provide a whole year, salary and positive index for each row, in strictly increasing year order. Do not duplicate a year or silently combine a mid-year raise with an annual-average index. If you need a different temporal convention, construct and label a separate comparison. The parser cannot make unlike periods comparable by sorting them.
Deflate before comparing endpoints
For each row, multiply nominal salary by the entered display base and divide by that row's price index. Compare the last deflated salary with the first: last/first minus one, multiplied by 100. This ratio handles compounding. Rows preserve both source quantities so a change in the index can be inspected separately from a change in pay.
Use the register as one discussion input
If negotiating compensation, present the chosen index source and its limitations alongside the arithmetic. Ask a qualified financial adviser about personal purchasing-power interpretation or a workplace representative about employment questions. Benefits, hours, local costs and market rates may matter more than this one basket comparison; the register does not decide what raise should be paid.
What the purchasing-power register separates
Question
Before
Inspect this instead
Subtracting nominal and index percentages
A five-percent salary rise divided by a ten-percent index rise is 1.05/1.10 minus one, not five minus ten. Direct subtraction approximates small changes and can misstate larger ones. The register exposes the deflated endpoints rather than hiding the ratio behind an unqualified inflation-adjusted label.
Enter an ordered series with its own indices
Mixing an index with an inflation rate
An index level of 112 is not an inflation rate of 112%. This field needs comparable index levels, with their source base retained privately. Annual percentage changes must first be reconciled into a consistent index series outside the tool. Entering rates as indices can produce plausible-looking but meaningless salary values.
Deflate before comparing endpoints
Calling the result everyone's cost-of-living change
A basket average does not mirror a particular person's housing, childcare or travel costs. The model also excludes taxes and benefits. State the index used, the period and the compensation measure, and resist turning a negative modeled change into an unsupported claim about wages owed or a guaranteed negotiation outcome.
Use the register as one discussion input
This purchasing-power register replaces a manual count or calculation, not source verification or the responsible person’s review.
Run it on the samples, right here
FIRST-LOAD
HYPOTHESIS / PROTOTYPE — checkout unavailable. Calculation is local. A draft is saved automatically in this browser profile when storage is available; Reset to sample clears it. Optional Pro history stores only five summaries and has its own deletion control. State links encode your inputs and can remain in browser history, clipboard or recipients’ records; share only non-sensitive rows. Optional external AI formatting leaves this device. The required site analytics beacon reports page activity; shared URLs contain encoded inputs. Do not treat an encoded URL as private. The calculator has no input-collection endpoint.
Compensation/index arithmetic only, not financial, tax or employment-law advice. Verify the price series and salary basis; consult a qualified financial adviser or workplace representative before using this comparison in a consequential decision.
Data note: The purchasing-power register processes Review code | year | annual salary | price index locally. Starter/sample selection and Run compute in this tab; no input is sent by the calculator. A local draft may be saved; explicit state-link sharing or optional external AI formatting can disclose inputs. Use non-sensitive labels.
Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a bound register page
The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the purchasing-power register reading, and holds your drafts on this device — one complete free app run; the proposed $4 one-time filing layer is not for sale.
The purchasing-power register answer stays complete for free. The proposed $4 one-time filing layer adds row CSV, print and five local reading summaries, not hidden answers. Checkout is unavailable; the article demo remains unlimited.
Compensation/index arithmetic only, not financial, tax or employment-law advice. Verify the price series and salary basis; consult a qualified financial adviser or workplace representative before using this comparison in a consequential decision.
What this is built on
Method: For each row, multiply nominal salary by the entered display base and divide by that row's price index. Compare the last deflated salary with the first: last/first minus one, multiplied by 100. This ratio handles compounding. Rows preserve both source quantities so a change in the index can be inspected separately from a change in pay.
All sample records, dates, quantities and labels are invented. No outside policy, contract, rate, clock offset, measurement or accessibility standard is represented as verified.
Google’s official pricing documentation, fetched 2026-10-01, says AI Studio is free in available regions. Optional formatting may require a Google account; manual local entry requires none. Limits can change and free-tier content may be used to improve products. Do not send private records.
Before: nominal raise and inflation percentages were casually subtracted. After: compatible salary/index observations produce inspectable deflated endpoints.
Three worked readings, with different inputs
Sample A — typical inputs
North baseline | 2024 | 48000 | 100
North review | 2026 | 54000 | 112
Setting: Price-index base for expressing comparable salary = 100. Expected summary: 0.446429 % real endpoint change.
The baseline is 48,000 at index 100. The review salary expressed on that same base is 54,000 × 100/112 = 48,214.285714. That is a 0.446429% real endpoint increase, despite a 12.5% nominal raise. The supplied index rose 12%; subtracting percentage changes would give 0.5 percentage points, which is not the compounded real-change ratio.
Sample B — changed plan
South baseline | 2024 | 60000 | 100
South review | 2026 | 63000 | 110
Setting: Price-index base for expressing comparable salary = 100. Expected summary: -4.545455 % real endpoint change.
The nominal salary rises 5%, while the entered index rises 10%. The later salary becomes 57,272.727273 on base 100. Dividing that by the baseline 60,000 and subtracting one gives -4.545455%, not simply minus five percent. The negative reading concerns the supplied index basket, not the person's full compensation, household purchasing needs or an employer's legal obligation.
Setting: Price-index base for expressing comparable salary = 100. Expected summary: 0 % real endpoint change.
Salary and index both rise 10%, so the later deflated salary is exactly 52,000. The modeled real endpoint change is zero. Changing the display base from 100 to another positive number would scale both deflated salaries equally and leave this percentage unchanged. This boundary separates a formatting convention from the underlying ratio.
Optional AI formatting, never the calculation
Manual entry completes this purchasing-power register for free without signup. If available to you, the free AI Studio interface linked in the sources may format fictional or non-sensitive notes; external access may require an account. No API key or AI call is built into this tool. Free-tier content may be used to improve products. Review each cell and transcribe it to the labeled row schema; do not paste the JSON object into the row box.
Format only these fictional or non-sensitive notes for a purchasing-power register. Return strict JSON shaped as {"rows": [{"label": "string", "cells": ["string", "string", "string"]}], "setting": "string"}. The columns are Review code | year | annual salary | price index; the setting is Price-index base for expressing comparable salary. Keep all supplied strings and quantities exactly; do not calculate, infer missing entries, invent dates or add advice. If any required value is missing, return an empty rows array and ask me for it separately. I will verify every cell against my source and manually transcribe rows using vertical bars before running the local calculator.
An AI response is not executed, fetched or trusted as a result. Missing values remain questions; the strict local parser checks the rows you actually enter.