# Producer Price Index (PPI) The [[Bureau of Labor Statistics]]' oldest continuous series (1902, originally the Wholesale Price Index): price changes from the *seller's* side, before they reach consumers. PPI is the early-warning pipe — input costs show up here months before they hit the [[Consumer Price Index]]. ## Latest reading *As of 2026-10-07 · refreshed monthly · the cross-indicator read lives at [[State of the US Economy]].* - **August 2026: PPI final demand +5.4% y/y** (+0.4% m/m). Core (less food, energy and trade services) **+4.7% y/y** (+0.3% m/m). - Producer inflation is running **2 points above** consumer CPI (3.4%). That pipeline gap is what this page describes as the early-warning signal. ISM's September prices indexes point the same way: manufacturing 77.9, services 74.0. - **Next:** September PPI on **Oct 15**. *Sources:* [BLS PPI](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm) · [ABA Banking Journal](https://bankingjournal.aba.com/2026/09/producer-prices-edged-up-0-4-in-august/) · [IndustryWeek on ISM](https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/news/55409073/september-ism-report-manufacturing-industry-extends-expansion-streak-for-ninth-consecutive-month) ## Why it matters for the KB PPI's political moment is the tariff era. A tariff lands first on producer input costs, so PPI is where economists watch for pass-through — and where the administration's "foreign countries pay the tariffs" claim meets its empirical test. When PPI for tariffed inputs jumps while the administration insists tariffs are deflationary, the gap between the two is documentable in a single series. The 2025–2026 Iran-war energy shock compounds this: producer energy costs feed both PPI and the freight/logistics chain. Low public familiarity keeps PPI's politicization rating at medium — it gets weaponized by analysts and business media rather than at rallies. Its main rhetorical use is anticipatory framing: "inflation is coming back, PPI proves it" (or the reverse), exploiting the fact that PPI is noisier than CPI and prone to one-month spikes that mean-revert. ## See Also - [[Consumer Price Index]] — the downstream consumer measure - [[Trade Deficit]] — the tariff-policy scoreboard