Template:Inflation/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Inflation. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template defaults to calculating the inflation of Consumer Price Index values: staples, workers' rent, small service bills (doctor's costs, train tickets). For inflating capital expenses, government expenses, or the personal wealth and expenditure of the rich, the US-GDP or UK-GDP indexes should be used, which calculate inflation based on the gross domestic product (GDP) for the United States and United Kingdom, respectively.

Do not assume that using this template will mean that a calculated value is "current", "as of 2024", "as of 2023" or even necessarily "recent". Per MOS:REALTIME, statements made using this template should either specify an end_year, or rely on |fmt=eq or {{Inflation/year}} to automatically indicate the latest year this template provides an inflation calculation. Do not use {{CURRENTYEAR}}.

This template is used on approximately 23,000 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them. Preview message: Transclusion count updated automatically (see documentation).

This template should not be substituted.

This template calculates inflation based on several inflation index data sets. The template uses an identification code for an inflation index (usually a country code), an original value, an original start_year and either a specific reference end_year or by default the latest currently available end year,^[1] and calculates the equivalent value from historical economic changes between the original and reference years. For example, this template calls the United States inflation table located in the sub-template Template:Inflation/US/dataset to perform the U.S. calculation.

Aside from a convenient way to calculate values from different specified time periods, this template allows a regularly automatically updated calculation of value based on the most recent available inflation data. Whenever inflation tables are updated, potentially annually, all articles using this template have their displayed values updated accordingly.

For US currency, a simplified wrapper template exists, {{USDCY}}, which turns e.g. "{{USDCY|6.66|1899}}" into "($244.00 in 2023)".