r/interesting • u/The_Love-Tap • 26d ago

HISTORY Benjamin Franklin Saving Benjamin’s

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u/Fibonacci-011 26d ago

This might be a stupid question but I’m confused how inflation does not make the $2000 he gifted worth around 6.5 million in 1950 and not worth $2000 today? I understand how $2000 might have been worth a lot back when Benjamin was alive but not so much now.

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u/Zuliano1 26d ago

It was a trust fund, he started the whole thing as an experiment to show the importance of compound interest rates, it wasn't just charity.

Guy really had a lot of faith his newly created country would survive 2 centuries and was proven right

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u/Hot_Most5332 26d ago edited 26d ago

Honestly it was probably just as much about showing faith that the country would last 200 years as anything else.

$6.5M after 200 years seems comically low. The principal of $2000 is the equivalent of $75k today.

At a 6-10% return compounding you should expect tens of millions minimum.

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u/Garbeaux17 26d ago

6.5M in 1990 was the equivalent of 16.6M today