Producer Price Index Grows the Fastest It Ever Has

by Harry Wilmerding

The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, soared 9.6% year-over-year as of November, growing at the fastest rate ever measured, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced Tuesday.

BLS reported that the PPI, which measures inflation before it hits consumers, grew 0.8% in November. As of October, the measure grew just 8.6% on a year-over-year basis and just 0.6% in that month alone, meaning wholesale prices grew more and to a worse yearly figure in November than they did in October.

Economists projected a year-over-year increase of the core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices, to be 7.2% year-over-year and a 0.4% increase from October, according to CNBC. Demand for goods was the biggest driver for the surge in producer prices, increasing 1.2% in November, slightly down from October’s 1.3% figure. Final demand services inflation increased 0.7% in November, much faster than October’s 0.2%.

“While we continue to expect producer prices to reach an apex in Q4, persistent supply headwinds will keep input and transportation costs sticky and only allow for a gradual moderation in price pressure,” Mahir Rasheed, U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Price Index increased 0.9% in November, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 6.8%, the highest figure in nearly four decades.

“A year ago economists predicted a two percent inflation rate, but in less than 12 months of one-party rule in Washington, consumers are instead facing the highest inflation rate in 40 years,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told the DCNF.

“This did not happen by accident — President Biden’s anti-worker, anti-American energy agenda have consumers paying more virtually every time they go check out,” McCarthy added.

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Harry Wilmerding is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “A Woman Shopping in a Grocery Store” by Lorie Shaull. CC BY 2.0.

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