Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic and Response on the Producer Price Index

The Producer Price Index (PPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices domestic producers receive for the sale of their products. If you have questions, contact the PPI staff.

The PPI COVID-19 statistics have remained relatively static throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, BLS has discontinued providing monthly updates on this information effective January 2022. This page provides summary information on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on PPI processes and describes the information that BLS will continue to provide on the PPI.

Collection

The PPI program collects nearly all data through the BLS Internet Data Collection Facility. There were no changes to monthly data collection methods in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Response Rates

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on published PPI data has been relatively minor. Initial response rates and comparison statistics for the monthly PPI data during the COVID-19 pandemic through December 2021 are available below. This response rate data reflected the number of valid prices used in a specific month, compared with the number of prices requested for index calculation in that same month. BLS also calculates an additional set of response rates for PPI, which reflect the total number of prices received for a given month, compared with the total number of prices eligible for use in index calculation in that same month. These data are available back to February 2014 and will continue to be available at Household and Establishment Survey Response Rates.

Index Suppression

All index publication quality is evaluated monthly. Each month, the number of respondents contacted and prices requested varies, based on the pricing frequency of PPI survey respondents. Information on the data collection process provides metrics to evaluate both the number and representative share of prices that support index quality. Publication criteria are designed to ensure the confidentiality of respondents, sample representativeness, and robustness of coverage for the area represented by each index.

For a list of indexes that were suppressed for a specific month, please contact the PPI Section of Index Analysis and Public Information at ppi-info@bls.gov or (202) 691-7705.

Changes to Methods

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no changes to estimation methodology for the U.S. Producer Price Indexes.

Producer Price Index COVID-19 Impact Summaries

Last Modified Date: February 15, 2022