Producer price indexes for 14 building materials plus the all-construction-materials index, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in one tidy CSV. Updated monthly after BLS publishes the Producer Price Index.
Charts, 12-month changes and what they mean for a home project: Building material prices by BuildRuler
data/building-material-prices.csv, one row per month and material:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
month |
YYYY-MM |
series_id |
BLS PPI series ID (look it up at https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/<series_id>) |
material |
Plain-English name |
ppi_index |
Index value, not seasonally adjusted. The base period differs by series, so compare % changes, not levels across materials. |
preliminary |
true for the latest four months, which BLS revises later |
| Series | Material |
|---|---|
| WPUSI012011 | All construction materials (BLS special index) |
| WPU1333 | Ready-mix concrete |
| WPU1322 | Cement |
| WPU1321 | Sand, gravel and crushed stone |
| WPU1394 | Paving mixtures and blocks |
| WPU058102 | Asphalt (no BLS data for most of 1997 to mid-2002) |
| WPU0811 | Softwood lumber |
| WPU083 | Plywood |
| WPU137 | Gypsum products (drywall) |
| WPU1342 | Brick and structural clay tile |
| WPU1392 | Insulation materials |
| WPU0621 | Paint |
| WPU101704 | Steel bars, plates and shapes |
| WPU1026 | Nonferrous wire and cable |
| WPU0721 | Plastic construction products |
These are producer (wholesale) prices. Retail prices follow with a lag and not one-for-one.
Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index, via the BLS public API. BLS data is in the public domain. This compilation and the chart are released under CC BY 4.0.
Please cite: BuildRuler, "Building material prices", https://buildruler.com/building-material-prices/ (BLS Producer Price Index data).
Estimating a project? BuildRuler has free calculators for the materials above, including concrete, gravel, lumber, asphalt and brick.