WASHINGTON - The producer price index in May declined by 0.3%, led lower by a 1.5% decrease in energy prices, the Labor Department reported today.
However, core producer prices, which exclude food and energy costs, rose 0.2%, the seventh consecutive monthly increase.
Economists expected total producer prices to fall 0.5% and core prices to rise 0.1%, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters. Producer prices fell an unrevised 0.1% in April, while the core rose 0.2%.
The 1.5% decline in prices for finished energy goods came as gasoline prices fell 7.0%, home heating oil prices fell 7.4% and liquefied petroleum gas prices fell 2.7%. Overall energy prices decreased an unrevised 0.8% in April.
Meanwhile, food prices declined 0.6% in May, the second consecutive decrease, as fresh and dry vegetable prices fell 18.0% and the prices of perishable, non-frozen prepared foods fell 4.5%. Prices of processed young chickens fell 1.3%.
For the year ending in May, total producer prices rose 5.3% and core prices increased 1.3%.
