Wholesale prices in the U.S. were unchanged last month in another sign that inflation is returning to something close to normal after years of pressuring America’s households in the wake of COVID-19, according to the Associated Press.
The Labor Department reported today that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it hits consumers — didn’t move from August to September after rising 0.2% the month before. It rose 1.8% last month from a year earlier, down from a 1.9% year-over-year increase in August. Excluding food and energy prices, which tend to fluctuate from month to month, so-called “core” wholesale prices rose 0.2% from August and 2.8% from a year earlier, a tick higher than in the previous month.
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.
