Since 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power — meaning what $1 bought back then now takes many dollars to buy today.
This isn’t a mystery or a conspiracy by itself; it’s what happens when inflation compounds for more than a century.
Even “small” yearly price increases stack on top of each other, quietly changing everything: why salaries have to rise over time, why long-term cash savings feel like they shrink, and why people care so much about interest rates and returns.
The key detail is the definition: the dollar didn’t “disappear” — it buys less.
And that one fact explains why old price tags look unreal, why grandparents talk about a house costing a few thousand dollars, and why money is best understood not as a fixed store of value, but as something that changes with time.