Producer Prices, Excluding Energy, Post Mild Uptick

Most prices charged by factories, farmers and other producers remained tame in April, but soaring energy prices--including a record jump for gasoline--may be starting to affect consumers.

The government’s producer price index for finished goods rose 0.5% in April, the Labor Department said Thursday. That followed a 0.2% increase in March and brought the annual rate of inflation in prices wholesalers pay to 1.1% so far in 1999, contrasted with a 0.1% decline for all of 1998.

The April rise was largely due to a 5.1% jump in energy prices, the largest in nearly nine years, which economists had expected.

Gasoline posted the largest price gain, an unparalleled 29.1%, breaking the record set during the Persian Gulf crisis. Fuel oil prices rose 14.3%, the most in five years.

However, prices paid by wholesalers for many other products, including food, computers and children’s clothing, dropped in April.

Leaving out food and energy, core producer prices--which economists watch most closely--climbed a mild 0.1% in April.

In a separate report Thursday, the Commerce Department said retail sales rose a smaller-than-expected 0.1% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $239.3 billion. Sales were up 7.5% from a year ago.

A 0.3% drop in demand for durable goods--items expected to last three years or longer--was offset by a 0.4% rise in sales of nondurables.

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Producer Price

Index of finished goods prices; 1982=100; seasonally adjusted:

April: 132.2

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics