Wholesale prices in the United States rose last month, remaining low but suggesting that the American economy has yet to completely vanquish inflationary pressures, according to the Associated Press.
Today’s report from the Labor Department showed that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it hits consumers — rose 0.2% from September to October, up from a 0.1% gain the month before. Compared with a year earlier, wholesale prices were up 2.4%, accelerating from a year-over-year gain of 1.9% in September.
A 0.3% increase in services prices drove the October increase. Wholesale goods prices edged up 0.1% after falling the previous two months. Excluding food and energy prices, so-called “core” wholesale prices rose 0.3% from September and 3.1% from a year earlier. The readings were about what economists had expected.
The producer price index can offer an early look at where consumer inflation might be headed. Economists also watch it because some of its components, notably health care and financial services, flow into the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, index.
