PPI Jumped 1.3%, and Only Half of It Was Energy
The producer price index (PPI), the government’s gauge of the prices US producers receive for what they sell and the usual measure of wholesale inflation, rose 1.3% in September 2026, the largest monthly rise since March 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on October 15. By our calculation from the BLS weights, energy accounted for about half of that rise, and prices outside energy still climbed 0.7%, matching April 2026 and slower than every big jump month of 2021 and 2022.
September 2026 producer prices at a glance
On this page
- How much of the 1.3% rise came from energy
- What the September PPI report showed
- How big a 1.3% month is in the PPI’s history
- What prices outside energy did
- What consumer prices did after past jumps
- Why gasoline rose 20% for producers and 9% at the pump
- What would show the pressure spreading or fading
- How we counted
- Frequently asked questions
How much of the 1.3% rise came from energy
About half of it, roughly 0.65 of a percentage point out of the 1.34 points the index rose, came from energy, by our calculation. That is a large share for a small slice of the index, since energy made up only 5.061% of final demand in the BLS relative importance weights for December 2025, and about 6% by August once its own price rise since December is counted.
The BLS release does give an energy share, but only for goods. It says that “over 80 percent” of the 2.6% rise in final demand goods came from energy, which jumped 10.8% in the month. Goods are a bit under a third of the index, though, and services are most of the rest, so the headline phrase you will read in a lot of places, that the jump was mostly energy, holds for goods and overstates it for the index as a whole.
We split the whole index by multiplying each part’s weight, carried forward from December 2025 to August 2026 by its own price changes, by its change in September. Out of every 100 parts of the September rise our method accounts for, energy supplied 49 and trade margins (what wholesalers and retailers earn on top of what they pay for goods) supplied 20, with transportation and warehousing at 14, other services at 8, foods at 5 and goods outside food and energy at 4.
Show the data
| Part | Value | Squares |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 49% | 49 |
| Trade margins | 20% | 20 |
| Transportation and warehousing | 14% | 14 |
| Other services | 8% | 8 |
| Foods | 5% | 5 |
| Other goods | 4% | 4 |
Two checks point to the same answer. BLS’s own Table 1 shows final demand less energy up 0.7% in September, against 1.3% for the whole index, and when you work back from the index levels behind those two changes and energy’s 10.8%, energy’s contribution comes out at about 0.68 of a point, or 50%. The weight method gives 0.645 of a point, or 48%. So “about half” is the honest way to say it, and the other half came from trade margins, freight, food and services.
Our estimate. The split is a StockTitan calculation from BLS inputs, since BLS prints an energy share only for goods. BLS publishes relative importance weights for December 2025 and the monthly changes of each part; we carried the weights forward to August 2026 with seasonally adjusted indexes, so each share is an approximation. The parts add up to 1.31 points against the 1.34 measured, and the chart shows shares of that 1.31, so energy’s 0.645 of a point is 49% there and 48% of the measured rise.
What the September PPI report showed
Final demand prices rose 1.3% in September, seasonally adjusted, after 0.5% in August and 0.2% in July, according to the BLS release. BLS wrote that “the September increase is the largest advance since rising 1.7 percent in March 2022.” Over the 12 months to September, before seasonal adjustment, the index rose 6.3%, the largest 12-month increase since December 2022.
Goods prices rose 2.6%, which BLS called “the largest increase since data were first calculated in December 2009,” and half of the goods increase traces to gasoline, up 20.3% in the month. Diesel fuel, jet fuel, residential electric power, crude petroleum and fresh and dry vegetables also rose, while chicken eggs fell 39.7%. Food prices at the producer level rose 1.2%, and goods outside food and energy rose 0.3%.
Services prices rose 0.8%, the largest rise since April. BLS said nearly half of that came from a 1.4% rise in trade margins, with margins for machinery and vehicle wholesaling up 3.9%. Transportation and warehousing prices rose 3.4%, with truck freight and airline passenger services among the gainers. One line moved the other way by a lot, since margins for automotive fuels and lubricants retailing fell 30.3%.
BLS’s measure of final demand less foods, energy and trade services rose 0.5% after 0.3% in August, and it is up 5.0% over 12 months. Further up the supply chain, unprocessed goods that businesses buy as inputs rose 8.4%, led by a 28.3% jump in crude petroleum, and the 12-month rise in those inputs reached 21.5%.
How big a 1.3% month is in the PPI’s history
It is the second largest monthly rise since the final demand index began, with only March 2022 higher. We computed every monthly change from the seasonally adjusted index levels BLS publishes, 202 months from December 2009 through September 2026, and September’s 1.34% sits behind March 2022’s 1.68% and ahead of everything else, the next largest month being November 2021 at about 1.1%.
Show the data
| Category | Final demand PPI monthly change (SA) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2021 | 0.6% | |
| Nov 2021 | 1.1% | |
| Dec 2021 | 0.6% | |
| Jan 2022 | 1.0% | |
| Feb 2022 | 0.9% | |
| Mar 2022 | 1.7% | Up 1.7%, the largest month since 2009 |
| Apr 2022 | 0.5% | |
| May 2022 | 0.9% | |
| Jun 2022 | 0.9% | |
| Jul 2022 | -0.3% | |
| Aug 2022 | -0.1% | |
| Sep 2022 | 0.3% | |
| Oct 2022 | 0.3% | |
| Nov 2022 | 0.3% | |
| Dec 2022 | -0.3% | |
| Jan 2023 | 0.4% | |
| Feb 2023 | -0.1% | |
| Mar 2023 | -0.3% | |
| Apr 2023 | 0.1% | |
| May 2023 | -0.2% | |
| Jun 2023 | 0.1% | |
| Jul 2023 | 0.6% | |
| Aug 2023 | 0.7% | |
| Sep 2023 | 0.2% | |
| Oct 2023 | -0.4% | |
| Nov 2023 | 0.1% | |
| Dec 2023 | -0.1% | |
| Jan 2024 | 0.3% | |
| Feb 2024 | 0.6% | |
| Mar 2024 | 0.1% | |
| Apr 2024 | 0.5% | |
| May 2024 | 0.0% | |
| Jun 2024 | 0.5% | |
| Jul 2024 | 0.0% | |
| Aug 2024 | 0.3% | |
| Sep 2024 | 0.3% | |
| Oct 2024 | 0.3% | |
| Nov 2024 | 0.1% | |
| Dec 2024 | 0.4% | |
| Jan 2025 | 0.6% | |
| Feb 2025 | 0.2% | |
| Mar 2025 | -0.1% | |
| Apr 2025 | -0.3% | |
| May 2025 | 0.3% | |
| Jun 2025 | 0.2% | |
| Jul 2025 | 0.8% | |
| Aug 2025 | -0.2% | |
| Sep 2025 | 0.6% | |
| Oct 2025 | 0.1% | |
| Nov 2025 | 0.4% | |
| Dec 2025 | 0.4% | |
| Jan 2026 | 0.6% | |
| Feb 2026 | 0.5% | |
| Mar 2026 | 0.8% | |
| Apr 2026 | 1.1% | Up 1.1%, with energy up 7.1% |
| May 2026 | 0.5% | |
| Jun 2026 | -0.1% | |
| Jul 2026 | 0.2% | |
| Aug 2026 | 0.5% | |
| Sep 2026 | 1.3% | Up 1.3%, second largest since 2009 |
The chart covers the last five years, and the longer record shows how unusual 2026 has been. Before 2021 the index moved more than half a percent, up or down, in about 14 of 133 months (five of them barely past the line), and from 2023 through 2025 it did so six times, the largest being 0.8% in July 2025. This year has had two months that round to 1.0% or more (April and September), and energy at the producer level has had its two largest monthly rises in the whole series, 10.5% in March and 10.8% in September.
Here a jump month means a month whose seasonally adjusted final demand change rounds to 1.0% or more, the way BLS rounds its published changes. Nine months since December 2009 meet that rule, so there are eight earlier jumps to compare September with, seven of them in 2021 and 2022 and one in April 2026.
What prices outside energy did
Outside energy, final demand prices rose 0.7% in September, which is the same pace as April 2026 and slower than every jump month of 2021 and 2022. In those seven months, the index excluding energy rose between about 0.8% and 1.3%, compared with 0.7% in September 2026.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Jan 2021 | 0.8% |
| Apr 2021 | 1.1% |
| May 2021 | 0.9% |
| Jul 2021 | 0.9% |
| Nov 2021 | 1.0% |
| Jan 2022 | 0.9% |
| Mar 2022 | 1.3% |
| Apr 2026 | 0.7% |
| Sep 2026 | 0.7% |
September is still not a quiet month outside energy. In the series for final demand less energy, which BLS starts in April 2010, the months with a faster rise came almost entirely from 2021 and 2022, the one exception being July 2025 at 0.8%. Transportation and warehousing alone supplied about a seventh of the month’s rise in our split, and since trucking, airline fares and warehousing are services whose costs include fuel, some of that part may reflect energy too.
Trade margins are the larger piece, and the harder one to read. They rose 1.4% across final demand even though the margin on fuel retailing fell 30.3% in the same month, because gains in lines BLS names, such as machinery and vehicle wholesaling (up 3.9%), food and alcohol wholesaling and food retailing, outweighed that fall. Trade margins also swing a lot from month to month, as the release’s Table A shows (down 2.7% in May, up 1.3% in June), so in our reading a single month of wide margins is a less steady signal than a broad rise in prices. BLS’s measure that leaves out foods, energy and trade services all together rose 0.5%.
What consumer prices did after past jumps
In the three months after the jump months of 2021 and 2022, consumer prices kept rising fast, and in the three months after April 2026 they barely moved. We measured the consumer price index (CPI), seasonally adjusted, over the three and six months that followed each of the eight earlier jumps, and the two groups look nothing alike.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Jan 2021 | 1.5% |
| Apr 2021 | 2.0% |
| May 2021 | 1.6% |
| Jul 2021 | 1.7% |
| Nov 2021 | 2.0% |
| Jan 2022 | 2.1% |
| Mar 2022 | 2.5% |
| Apr 2026 | 0.1% |
| Jump month | Final demand PPI | PPI energy | PPI outside energy | CPI, next 3 months | CPI, next 6 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2021 | +1.0% | +3.9% | +0.8% | +1.5% | +3.5% |
| Apr 2021 | +1.0% | -0.5% | +1.1% | +2.0% | +3.7% |
| May 2021 | +1.0% | +2.0% | +0.9% | +1.6% | +3.9% |
| Jul 2021 | +1.0% | +2.0% | +0.9% | +1.7% | +3.9% |
| Nov 2021 | +1.1% | +2.2% | +1.0% | +2.0% | +4.4% |
| Jan 2022 | +1.0% | +2.5% | +0.9% | +2.1% | +4.4% |
| Mar 2022 | +1.7% | +7.5% | +1.3% | +2.5% | +3.0% |
| Apr 2026 | +1.1% | +7.1% | +0.7% | +0.1% | not yet |
| Sep 2026 | +1.3% | +10.8% | +0.7% | not yet | not yet |
In the 2021 and 2022 group, CPI rose between 1.5% and 2.5% over the next three months and between 3.0% and 4.4% over the next six. Those were months when prices outside energy were rising close to 1% a month, and energy at the producer level kept climbing in the three months after each of them, by 6% to 17%.
April 2026 went the other way. Energy at the producer level rose 7.1% that month and another 8.2% in May, then fell 6.8% in June and 1.7% in July, according to the BLS release’s Table A, and the CPI rose 0.5% in May, fell 0.4% in June and rose 0.1% in July, a gain of 0.12% over the three months on the unrounded index.
That flat total hid two moves, since by our calculation from the BLS indexes the CPI without food and energy rose about 0.4% over those months while consumer energy prices fell about 3.5%, and once energy rose again the CPI stood about 1.2% above its April level by September.
In these eight months, the bigger CPI rises came where prices outside energy had been rising close to 1% a month and producer energy prices kept climbing afterwards, and the flat three months came after April 2026, when producer energy prices ended the window about 1% lower than in April. Several of the 2021 windows overlap (April and May 2021 share two of their three months), so the seven earlier jumps are closer to one long episode than to seven separate cases.
September’s 0.7% outside energy is the same as April’s and lower than any 2021 or 2022 jump, and what energy does from here is not known. The table records what happened after eight months from two unusual periods, and it is no guide to which of the two patterns the coming months will resemble.
Why gasoline rose 20% for producers and 9% at the pump
The two indexes measure different prices at different points in the chain, so the same month can show very different numbers. The PPI tracks “the selling prices received by domestic producers for their output,” while the CPI tracks the prices urban consumers pay for a basket of goods and services, at the register and at the pump.
Show the data
| Item | Producer prices (PPI) | Consumer prices (CPI) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gasoline | 20.3% | 9.1% | -11.2 pts |
| Energy | 10.8% | 5.2% | -5.6 pts |
| Final demand / all items | 1.3% | 0.6% | -0.7 pts |
In September, gasoline at the producer level rose 20.3%, and the CPI release a day earlier showed gasoline up 9.1% for consumers after seasonal adjustment (6.5% before it), “accounting for over half of the monthly all items increase.” The CPI rose 0.6% in the month and 3.7% over 12 months, while its measure without food and energy rose 0.3%, the same as in August. Energy as a whole rose 10.8% in the PPI and 5.2% in the CPI.
In our reading, the 30.3% fall in fuel retailing margins in the PPI may be part of the bridge between those two gasoline numbers, because a seller that pays more at wholesale and raises its own price by less earns a thinner margin, and the two indexes also cover different products and buyers. The US Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey put the average regular gallon at $4.465 on September 28, $4.354 on October 5 and $4.331 on October 12, so pump prices have eased somewhat since late September and remain $1.27 above a year earlier.
Our coverage of the September CPI report and the 2027 Social Security raise covers the consumer side in more detail.
What would show the pressure spreading or fading
The clearest signal is the line for final demand less energy. If it keeps rising near or above 0.7% a month in the next reports, the jump would look more like the 2021 and 2022 group in the table, and if it falls back toward 0.2% or 0.3% while energy reverses, September would look more like April. The October PPI is scheduled for Friday, November 13, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. ET, and the October CPI for Tuesday, November 10, both on the StockTitan economic calendar.
Trade margins and the earlier stages of production are the other places to look. A second large rise in margins outside fuel would make the 0.7% less of a one-month swing, and BLS’s intermediate demand data shows what businesses are paying before those costs reach final demand. Unprocessed inputs rose 8.4% in September, mostly from energy, but the lines that leave energy out also rose, with processed materials less foods and energy up 0.5% and unprocessed nonfood materials less energy up 2.5%.
The Federal Reserve last raised its target range to 3.75% to 4.00% on September 16, before either September report came out. In the minutes of that meeting, “many participants assessed that the longer energy prices remained elevated, the greater the risk that cost increases in certain sectors could lead to broader price pressures.” The next meeting is on October 27 and 28, per the Fed’s calendar, and our article on those minutes covers what officials said about another increase.
How we counted
The historical comparisons and our own calculations use the seasonally adjusted index levels BLS serves through its public data service as of October 15, 2026, for final demand (series WPSFD4), its energy, foods, other goods, trade, transportation and warehousing, other services and construction parts (WPSFD412, WPSFD411, WPSFD413, WPSFD423, WPSFD422, WPSFD421 and WPSFD43), final demand less energy (WPSFD49107), the CPI for all urban consumers (CUSR0000SA0), and its measures without food and energy (CUSR0000SA0L1E) and for energy (CUSR0000SA0E).
A monthly change is one month’s index divided by the previous month’s, minus one. The figures for single products and lines, such as gasoline, trade margins and upstream inputs, are the ones BLS prints in its releases. BLS revises seasonal factors each year, so a past month’s change today can differ slightly from the figure first published.
Index levels before July 2021 are published to one decimal, so changes in those months are approximate to about a tenth of a point, which is why we define a jump month by BLS’s one-decimal rounding and quote 2021 values to one decimal. The CPI windows start from the jump month’s level, so “next 3 months” for April 2026 runs from April to July. CPI for October 2025 is missing because of the 2025 lapse in federal appropriations, and none of the windows here crosses it. You can follow the same PPI series on StockTitan’s PPI page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the producer price index (PPI)?
The PPI is a set of BLS indexes that track the prices US producers receive for goods, services and construction they sell. The headline figure is final demand, which groups sales to final buyers (consumers, businesses buying equipment, government and exports, as BLS Table 1 lists them), and it rose 1.3% in September 2026.
What is the difference between PPI and CPI?
The PPI measures the selling prices domestic producers receive, while the CPI measures the prices urban consumers pay for a basket of goods and services. In September 2026 the PPI rose 1.3% and the CPI 0.6%, and gasoline rose 20.3% at the producer level against 9.1% for consumers, both seasonally adjusted.
Why did the PPI jump in September 2026?
About half of the 1.3% rise came from energy, by our calculation from BLS weights, with gasoline up 20.3% and diesel and jet fuel also higher. Most of the rest came from trade margins, up 1.4%, and transportation and warehousing, up 3.4%.
When is the next PPI report?
BLS has scheduled the October 2026 PPI for Friday, November 13, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. ET. The October CPI comes first, on Tuesday, November 10.
Where can I follow PPI data on StockTitan?
StockTitan’s PPI page shows the final demand index and its monthly changes, the CPI page does the same for consumer prices, and the economic calendar lists the release dates.
Sources
- StockTitan, Producer Price Index page
- StockTitan, Consumer Price Index page
- StockTitan, economic calendar
- StockTitan, September 2026 CPI report
- StockTitan, Fed minutes of September 2026
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Indexes, September 2026 (October 15, 2026)
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, PPI Table 1, weights and percent changes
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index, September 2026 (October 14, 2026)
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Indexes data
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index data
- US Energy Information Administration, Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update
- Federal Reserve, FOMC statement of September 16, 2026
- Federal Reserve, minutes of the FOMC meeting of September 15 and 16, 2026
- Federal Reserve, FOMC meeting calendars
The information provided in this article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or an endorsement of any particular investment strategy. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.