Inflation
PPI — August 2026
Released September 10, 2026 · 8:30 AM ET · Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The read · narrated
The read
Everyone’s going to quote the diesel number — up twenty-four percent in a month. The number that tells you where inflation is actually heading is buried four tables deeper.
The headline. Producer prices rose four tenths in August; the annual pace went from four point eight to five point four. Over three-fourths of the goods increase was energy — the Bureau’s attribution.
So take energy out — not just from the headline, from the whole pipeline. This report prices four stages of production before anything reaches final demand.
Inputs to the last stage of goods production, food and energy excluded: up eight point four percent over the year. In April it was six point six. It has climbed every month since.
And it isn’t fuel. Nonferrous metals, up thirty-three percent over the year. Steel mill products, twenty-three, and climbing since May. Electronic components, nearly twenty-eight. Inputs to machines, buildings and data centers.
Now the other end of the pipe. Last month we said wholesale core had turned lower. In August it turned back up, to four point six. That’s the price at the end of production. Eight point four was the cost going in.
So does that reach the shelf? The gap has only been this wide once — the twenty twenty-one run-up. Measured early in it, core rose from five to eight and a half inside a year. Measured late, it fell from nine to three.
What sits in between is margins. On fuel retailing, they fell eleven point three percent — wholesale jumped, the pump didn’t follow, the seller ate the difference. That line swings hard both ways. It’s the last step absorbing a cost instead of passing it on.
Last week we said these two inflation reports were all that was left to tell the two-year whether its move was early. Today it added thirteen — eighty-one basis points above the Fed’s ceiling, widest since November twenty twenty-two.
So be plain. The condition the Chair named in July for tightening was underlying inflation moving higher. None of this is the checkout lane — that’s a different report. At the last step before it, it hasn’t. Every step above it has — five months running.
Consumer prices are the next test.
| Measure | Latest | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Headline PPI | +0.4% m/m · +5.4% y/y | ▲ up from 4.8% — three-fourths of the goods rise was energy |
| Core PPI (ex food & energy) | +0.2% m/m · +4.6% y/y | ▲ up from 4.3% — but ex-fuel upstream costs run 8.4% |
Producer Price Index for final demand, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2026 release (September 10, 2026), pulled from the BLS API. Headline final demand (WPUFD4 / WPSFD4): +0.4% on the month, 5.4% over 12 months against 4.8% in July. Core — final demand less foods and energy (WPUFD49104 / WPSFD49104): +0.2% and 4.6%, against 4.3% in July. Final demand goods (WPSFD41) +1.1%, services (WPSFD42) +0.1%, energy (WPSFD412) +4.2%, diesel fuel (WPS057303) +24.1%, truck transportation of freight (WPU3012) +2.0%, final demand trade services (WPSFD423) −0.2%, and fuels and lubricants retailing margins (WPS58F) −11.3%. Annual (12-month) changes follow the headline convention — not seasonally adjusted; monthly changes are seasonally adjusted. Spoken and displayed figures are the official published changes; plotted series are computed from the index levels, date-keyed month against year-ago month. The pipeline figures. “Eight point four” is inputs to stage-4 goods producers, goods excluding foods and energy (WPUID54113) — 8.4% over 12 months, against 6.6% in April, and higher in every month between. It is a different population from final demand, which covers all final demand including services, so the two are described here as the cost going into production and the price at the end of it — not as one party’s costs against the same party’s prices. All four intermediate stages accelerated in August: stage 1 to 11.3%, stage 2 to 9.7%, stage 3 to 6.5%, stage 4 to 6.7% (WPUID51–54). The composition. Nonferrous metals (WPU102) 33.0% over 12 months, electronic components and accessories (WPU1178) 27.6%, steel mill products (WPU1017) 23.4% and higher in each month since May, electrical machinery and equipment (WPU117) 13.5%, industrial chemicals (WPU061) 13.3%, electric power (WPU054) 2.8%. PPI does not attribute a price change to a cause, and none is assigned here. The precedent. The gap between those two measures is 3.8 points. On the same pair it has been this wide in 16 of the 185 months since the series begin in 2011, all of them one episode running May 2021 to June 2022. Measured at May 2021, final demand core went from 5.3% to 8.6% over the following 12 months; measured at March 2022, from 9.7% to 3.3%. Margins. The fuel-retailing margin series is volatile by construction — its 2026 monthly changes run +1.0, +5.7, −1.6, +14.9, −11.4, +7.3, −1.7 and −11.3 — so August is a large move in a series that makes large moves, not evidence of a durable squeeze. Revisions. This release revised April through July (the Bureau’s own footnote); figures here are the current vintage, on which July core reads 4.3% rather than the 4.2% we published on August 13. Treasury yields are constant-maturity par yields (Treasury.gov daily curve; FRED DGS2 mirrors at a one-business-day lag): the 2-year closed at 4.56% on September 10 against 4.43% on September 9, and 4.15% on August 13, the last PPI print. The Fed ceiling is the upper bound of the federal-funds target range (FRED DFEDTARU, 3.75%); the 2-year has not closed 81 basis points or more above it since November 2, 2022. The Chair’s stated condition for tightening is from the July 29 FOMC press conference (federalreserve.gov) and has not been restated since. Jobless claims for the week ending September 5 were 206,000 with a four-week average of 206,000, down 1,500 (Department of Labor via FRED). The next consumer price index is September 11.