The Producer Price Index (PPI)

See Producer Price Indexes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS):

"The Producer Price Index (PPI) program measures the average change over time in the selling prices received by domestic producers for their output. The prices included in the PPI are from the first commercial transaction for many products and some services."

See also See Producer Price Index (PPI): What It Is and How It's Calculated from Investopedia.

"The Producer Price Index (PPI) measures the average change over time in the prices domestic producers receive for their output. It is a measure of inflation at the wholesale level that is compiled from thousands of indexes measuring producer prices by industry and product category. The index is published monthly by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The PPI is different from the consumer price index (CPI), which measures the changes in the price of goods and services paid by consumers."

Below is a graph of the PPI over time. From FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) compiled by the Research Division at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. See Producer Price Index by Commodity: All Commodities (PPIACO).

It was down in February this year by 0.1%. Maybe that is a good sign for inflation. If costs to businesses fall (or don't rise) maybe they won't rise so much in the near future for consumers. But it is just one month and we can see that it spiked up quite a bit when Covid started.

The chart below shows both the CPI and PPI since 1982. The CPI in 1982 was 96.5. The PPI was 100 in 1982. So they were close then. The blue line is the CPI while the orange line is the PPI.