A new report from the Department of Labor detailing price dynamics from the perspective of input costs to businesses shows underlying inflationary pressures rising in August, suggesting inflation could stick around for longer.
The headline Producer Price Index (PPI), which tracks inflation before it hits consumers, fell 0.1 percent between July and August, according to a statement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Sept. 14.
But the so-called core PPI, which excludes the volatile categories of food and energy and is a measure of underlying, or “sticky,” inflationary pressures, rose 0.2 percent last month. That’s a faster pace of month-over-month core business input cost growth than the 0.1 percent recorded in July, suggesting underlying inflationary pressures were building again after three consecutive months of easing….