[kellynla]

[Vigilanteman]

That’s a great graphic and would look even worse if you used, say 1880, for a base year. First class postage was two cents from then until World War II, except for a brief period during World War I when they were increased to three cents. After that war ended, they went back down to two cents where they would remain until World War II bumped them up permanently.

[Vigilanteman]

Actually, stamps went back up from two cents to three in 1932, not World War II. They were definitely three cents in 1950 and rose to four cents in the summer of 1958, the base year for the chart in post #2.

[KarlInOhio]

The graph and the article hide one little fact: the worst of postal inflation increases relative to the CPI was from 1958-1974. The stamp went from 4¢ to 10¢ (+150%) while the CPI went up only +70%. From 1974 to 2008 the stamp went from 10¢ to 42¢ (+320%) while the CPI went up +332%. Set the baseline year up to 1974 and you'll see inflation and the stamp price moving in lockstep.

(I picked 2008 as the last year because the inflation calculator I use ends then and I didn't feel like going to the monthly CPI data.)

Postal rate history (and an interesting inflation adjusted graph) from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postage_rates

Inflation calculator as http://www.westegg.com/inflation/