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Impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the Producer Price Index data for April 2021

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. PPI estimates for April 2021 were published on May 13, 2021. The pricing date was Tuesday, April 13, 2021, which means that most producers, but not all, provided prices they received on that date. The summary statistics in tables 1, 2, 3 and 4 indicate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the PPI data collection, index estimation, and the BLS ability to publish indexes was minor for the release of preliminary April data. No changes in estimation procedures were necessary.

This page provides information on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for the April 2021 Producer Price Indexes news release.

Collection mode

The PPI collects nearly all of its repricing data by web collection. There were no changes to collection mode in response to the pandemic.

Response rates

Table 1 provides the April 2021 response rate by industry sector, along with comparison periods of April 2020, March 2021, and a 12-month average for March 2019 to February 2020.

It is important to note that typically, the PPI survey’s monthly price collection response rate averages 76 percent by the end of its 4-month index revision period. All PPIs are recalculated 4 months after publication of preliminary data. Thus, April 2021 indexes may be revised when BLS publishes the PPI for August on September 10, 2021. All summary statistics in the tables below reflect comparisons to PPI preliminary data.

Table 1. Comparative response rate percentages for the release of PPI preliminary industry indexes
Industry sectors 12-month average, March 2019 to February 2020 April 2020 March 2021 April 2021 Percentage point change from March 2021 to April 2021

All industrial sectors

69 75 74 74 0

Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting

47 44 46 47 +1

Mining, utilities, and construction

66 71 73 75 +2

Manufacturing

74 78 76 76 0

Wholesale trade

62 65 64 65 +1

Retail trade

75 74 79 77 -2

Transportation and warehousing

80 81 79 84 +5

Finance, real estate, and other information services

79 79 80 78 -2

Health care services

59 62 61 65 +4

Entertainment, accommodation and food services

66 47 46 48 +2

Other services, except public administration

80 96 90 100 +10

Imputation

When a respondent does not provide a price for an item, BLS employs an imputation method of replacing that missing price with a statistically estimated value. Missing prices are imputed by the prices of similar items that have been collected. Essentially, the price movement of items that are not collected are estimated to be the same as those in their general index category. Table 2 indicates that the April 2021 item imputation rate of 35 percent reflects a decrease from the preceding month as well as a decrease from all of the other comparison periods.

Table 2. Comparative summary percentages for the release of preliminary PPI data
Measure 12-month average, March 2019 to February 2020 April 2020 March 2021 April 2021 Percentage point change from March 2021 to April 2021

Item imputation rate

39 36 38 35 -3

Cell, series, index, or observation suppression

BLS calculates over 10,000 PPIs for individual products and groups of products for publication during the release of preliminary data. The first row of table 3 shows the April 2021 publication rate is very similar to the comparison periods. BLS suppresses indexes when they fail to meet publication criteria. Because of additional collection efforts along with late-arriving data, these suppressed indexes often will meet publication criteria at the end of the 4-month index revision period, at which time they are published. (Upon request, BLS will provide a list of indexes that did not meet publication criteria for the release of preliminary PPI data. Please email requests to ppi-info@bls.gov.)

Further illustrating the nominal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the second row of table 3 shows the percent of industry indexes that BLS was unable to calculate because BLS did not receive any prices for that index. This proportion of not calculated indexes for April 2021 is similar to the normal result.

Table 4 takes a closer look at the not calculated PPI indexes by industry and reflects that across all industry sectors there is little difference between April’s result when compared with earlier periods.

Table 3. Comparative summary percentages for the release of preliminary PPI data
Measure 12-month average, March 2019 to February 2020 April 2020 March 2021 April 2021 Percentage point change from March 2021 to April 2021

Percent of indexes (intended to publish) that were actually published

89 89 88 88 0

Percent of PPI industry indexes not calculated

6 7 7 7 0
Table 4. Comparative percent of PPI preliminary industry indexes not calculated
Industry sectors 12-month average, March 2019 to February 2020 April 2020 March 2021 April 2021 Percentage point change from March 2021 to April 2021

All industrial sectors

6 7 7 7 0

Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting

3 3 3 3 0

Mining, utilities, and construction

13 14 16 16 0

Manufacturing

7 7 8 8 0

Wholesale trade

4 4 5 5 0

Retail trade

0 0 0 0 0

Transportation and warehousing

0 0 1 1 0

Finance, real estate, and other information services

1 1 1 1 0

Health care services

10 9 9 9 0

Entertainment, accommodation and food services

0 0 0 0 0

Other services, except public administration

0 0 0 0 0

Note: BLS collects price data to support several thousand industry PPIs, from lower-level industry product lines up to 2-digit industry sectors. All of the noncalculating indexes are below the industry (6-digit) level and reflect industry product lines. BLS calculates some detailed, lower-level PPI indexes that are not intended to meet publication criteria but are necessary for weighting and imputation purposes.

Last Modified Date: May 13, 2021