Business Inputs See Major Price Hikes

Processed goods for intermediate demand, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ category for measuring the price of business inputs, rose 24% year-over-year in January and unprocessed good for intermediate demand rose 29.7% year-over-year.

January saw a 1.7% month-over-month rise in price of processed goods for intermediate demand while prices of unprocessed goods for intermediate demand declined 2.0% due to a 4.7% month-over-month drop in the price of unprocessed energy materials.

More than half of the January increase in intermediate products was driven by prices of processed materials outside the volatile food and energy category with softwood lumber seeing a 25.4% increase in prices.

The index for final demand products rose 1% in January with final demand prices up 9.7% year-over-year.