A 22.2% drop in gasoline prices in September drove the U.S. Labor Department's Producer Price Index (PPI) down by 1.3% in September. The decline followed six months of increases in the PPI, ranging from nine tenths of a percent in April to a tenth of a percent in July and August. September's decline was much larger than economists generally expected.
Also larger than generally expected was the change in the so-called core PPI, the nominal figure minus price changes for food and fuel. The core PPI increased six-tenths of a percent in September, triple what most economists anticipated, after two consecutive monthly declines.
