Producer prices increase 2.1 percent in 12 months

The Producer Price Index for finished goods climbed 2.1 percent for the 12 months ended September 2012.

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For the 12 months ended in September, the index for nondurable goods less foods (which has a relative importance value of 40.9 percent) increased 2.7 percent. The index for durable goods (with a relative importance value of 13.6 percent) increased 2.1 percent.

The index for crude finished consumer foods (with a relative importance value of 1.4 percent) decreased 0.6 percent over the 12 months ended in September. The index for processed finished consumer foods (relative importance of 17.3 percent) increased 2.1 percent.

The overall 12-month percent increase in the prices for finished goods in September 2012 (2.1 percent) was the largest rise since a 2.8-percent increase for the 12 months ended March 2012.

These data are from the Producer Price Index program. See "Producer Price Indexes — September 2012" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-12-2032, for more information. The relative importance of a component of the PPI represents its value weight that is allocated to the finished goods stage-of-processing (SOP) category. This value is expressed as a percentage of the total weight of the SOP category.