September 15, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

PPI down in August 2008

The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods declined 0.9 percent in August, seasonally adjusted. This decrease followed advances of 1.2 percent in July and 1.8 percent in June. Leading the downturn in prices for finished goods, the index for energy goods fell 4.6 percent in August after climbing 3.1 percent in July.

[Chart data—TXT]

Prices for liquefied petroleum gas dropped 19.5 percent in August after rising 10.8 percent a month earlier. Gasoline prices fell more in August than they had in the prior month, while the index for residential electric power rose less than it had in July.

The index for finished goods other than foods and energy moved up 0.2 percent in August following a 0.7-percent jump in July. The index for finished consumer foods increased 0.3 percent in August, the same as in July.

From August 2007 to August 2008, prices for finished goods rose 9.6 percent, as shown in the chart.

These data are from the BLS Producer Price Index program. To learn more, see "Producer Price Indexes — August 2008," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-1273. 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.