The producer price index jumped 9.6 percent in November compared to the same month last year, the highest year-over-year increase since record-keeping began in 2010.
The PPI increased by 0.8 percent during the month of November 2021.
Prices still climbed 6.9 percent when excluding food and energy costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The PPI tracks changes in the sale price of domestically produced goods, and is a key gauge of inflation.
Meanwhile, consumer prices rose 6.2 percent in October compared with the previous year, the highest increase in over 30 years.
The Biden administration initially claimed that rising inflation would likely be “transitory” while the global economy recovers from shocks induced by the coronavirus pandemic. However, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell told lawmakers in November that the word “transitory” should no longer be used to describe current inflation.
“We tend to use [transitory] to mean that it won’t leave a permanent mark in the former of higher inflation. I think it’s probably a good time to retire that word and try to explain more clearly what we mean,” Powell told the Senate Banking Committee. “Clearly the risk of more persistent inflation has risen.”