An important story that’s emerging in what are hopefully the winding-down days of the pandemic concerns supply shortages and cost hikes.
The all-items U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), which has been consistently under +2.0% year over year for an extended period, suddenly shot up to +4.2% y/y in April, as a result of moving +0.8% in just one month.
As everyday shoppers, you and I may feel we have something to gripe about. But consider the plight of the unfortunate contracting community. Our soaring expense frustrations pale beside what beleaguered contractors are facing.
Table 1 shows y/y and latest-three-month price hikes for 15 major construction materials and some of the key ingredients of building products (e.g., aluminum in ventilation systems).
Table 1 is a subset of Table 2 which appears at the end of this article and includes a comprehensive list of construction material inputs and special indices. All the numbers come from the Producer Price Index (PPI) data set compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
