How much the dollar supply has grown, what the official price index says that did to prices, what actually happened to the price of a house, and what happened to bitcoin. All four start at 100 on the date you choose.
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M2 is the Federal Reserve's count of dollars in circulation plus deposits and money-market funds. When it grows faster than the economy, each dollar competes with more dollars for the same goods.
CPI is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' index of a basket of consumer goods and services. It's the number most people mean by "inflation." Its method has changed over the decades: when a good gets expensive the basket assumes people substitute a cheaper one, quality improvements are subtracted from price rises, and housing is measured as what a homeowner would hypothetically pay in rent rather than what a house costs. Critics argue each change lowers the reported figure below what households experience; the BLS argues each measures the cost of living more accurately. Both positions are held by serious economists.
Median house price is on the chart as one large, unavoidable cost that the CPI method treats indirectly. If the CPI line and the house line diverge, that gap is the practical version of the argument above.
Bitcoin is on its own axis because its move dwarfs the others. It is the only line here whose supply schedule is fixed.
Four public series rebased so each equals 100 at the start date: M2 (monthly), CPI for all urban consumers (monthly), median sales price of US houses (quarterly), and the bitcoin price (daily). The first three are on the left axis; bitcoin is on the right, logarithmic. Hover for values; click a legend entry to hide a line.
Wages, which also rose. Whether money supply growth causes price rises directly, with a lag, or only under some conditions; economists disagree. And the many costs that are neither in the CPI basket nor on this chart: tuition, insurance, childcare, healthcare. It's a comparison, not a verdict.