Put in a Word About PPIs

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the federal agency that puts out the producer price index (PPI), is looking for feedback. Their survey asks respondents about what information they use currently, what they’d like to see improved or added, and what they think of the responsiveness of BLS staff. Go to www.bls.gov/ppi to see an invitation to help improve the agency’s products and services by completing the brief survey. Or go directly to the SurveyMonkey website at https://www.research.net/s/PPIWebsite. Respondents are not asked for any identifying information. Among the questions BLS is asking the public to answer is whether a PPI for highway construction would be useful. There is not likely to be much clamor for such an index unless contractors say they want one. The survey instrument also includes suggestion boxes for recommending additional indexes, explanations and methods of displaying information. Over the past decade, BLS has introduced nine construction indexes that track the prices of five types of new nonresidential buildings and four categories of subcontractors. The latest—an index for health care buildings—was added in February. The other new building PPIs are for office, warehouse, industrial and school buildings. The subcontractor indexes follow prices that electrical, plumbing, roofing and concrete contractors charge for new, repair and maintenance work. Although there is no question on the survey about additional building or subcontractor indexes, contractors may want to suggestion some in the open-ended boxes. BLS creates the new-building indexes by asking an anonymous set of contractors how much they would charge to complete a building with certain assemblies or components. BLS gets the prices of the components each quarter from a price-estimating firm. Thus, contractors are only estimating what their own labor, overhead and profit would be. The building specifications remain constant, and contractors stay in the survey sample for three years, with one-third of the sample replaced each year. Each month, AGC puts out a press release and a discussion in the Data DIGest highlighting changes in construction-related PPIs, linked to a set of tables covering about 50 of them. The DIGest also covers the Federal Highway Administration’s quarterly National Highway Construction Cost Index and private reports on construction and materials costs. We encourage you to fill out the BLS customer survey and to submit additional suggestions for cost information. In addition, please send me those suggestions at simonsonk@agc.org, so that I can help advocate for them. As always, I also welcome any “Dear Valued Customer” notices you get announcing price changes. This year, I am a member of the bureau’s Data Users Advisory Committee, which provides an additional venue for me to submit your suggestions directly to BLS Commissioner Erica Groschen and other senior BLS officials. I will also be meeting with her in my capacity as the 2012-13 president of the National Association for Business Economics.