November 18, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Producer prices, October 2009

On an unadjusted basis, from October 2008 to October 2009, prices for finished goods fell 1.9 percent, the eleventh consecutive month of year-over-year declines.

Producer Price Index for Finished Goods, 12-month percent change, October 2008–October 2009, not seasonally adjusted
[Chart data]

Over the month, the Producer Price Index for Finished Goods advanced 0.3 percent in October, seasonally adjusted.

The October increase in the index for finished goods can be attributed to higher prices for energy and food, both of which moved up 1.6 percent. By contrast, prices for finished goods other than foods and energy declined 0.6 percent.

These data are from the BLS Producer Price Index program. To learn more, see "Producer Price Indexes — October 2009" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL 09-1399. All producer price indexes are routinely subject to revision once, 4 months after original publication, to reflect the availability of late reports and corrections by respondents.

 

Of interest

Spotlight on Statistics: The Recession of 2007–2009

The most recent recession in the United States began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, though many of the statistics that describe the U.S. economy have yet to return to their pre-recession values. In this Spotlight, we present BLS data that compare the recent recession to previous recessions. Read more »