US inflation data delayed by website glitch, shows wholesale price jump

WASHINGTON: Annual US wholesale inflation spiked to its highest rate in nearly a decade last month, but the news was delayed by a glitch on the Labour Department’s website Friday.

“Sorry for the delay in the PPI release, folks,” the department’s Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) tweeted, followed by a thread with the details on the data. At the normal release time of 8:30 am (1230 GMT) interested observers were met with a message saying: “The BLS website is busy. Refresh page and try again.”

The report showed signs the reopening economy is seeing prices rebound, something economists and the Federal Reserve have warned will happen temporarily due to the dramatic declines amid the Covid-19 shutdowns.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) jumped 1.0 percent in March, seasonally adjusted, double the monthly increase in February and slightly slower than January, the BLS reported.

But in the past 12 months PPI surged 4.2 percent, unadjusted, the highest since September 2011, the report said.

The jump was driven by an 8.8-percent jump in gasoline prices. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, PPI was up 0.6 percent in March, and for the latest 12 months increased 3.1 percent, still accelerating from recent levels, the report showed.