Market Data

What the PPI for Machinery and Equipment Actually Measures at 199.10

A plain-English guide to the BLS index that tracks factory-gate prices for the machines factories buy, why it sits at 199.10 today, and what makes it move.

The PPI for Machinery and Equipment is a Bureau of Labor Statistics index of the prices U.S. producers charge for machinery, measured against a 1982 base of 100. It reads 199.10 as of May 2026, meaning these goods cost about 99% more than they did in 1982, and it is currently climbing, up about 7.5% from a year ago. For anyone budgeting a press, a machining center or a packaging line, this is the broadest single gauge of what capital equipment costs at the factory gate.

How to read a 1982=100 index

The base-year convention trips up more readers than the data does. An index of 100 was assigned to 1982 prices; every reading since is a ratio to that year. At 199.10, machinery prices are 1.99 times their 1982 level, the level itself is not a dollar figure and cannot be compared across different PPI series, only across time within this one. Two more reading rules matter. First, the useful signal is the rate of change, not the level: the year-over-year move, currently up about 7.5% from a year ago, is what belongs in a budget assumption. Second, this is a quality-adjusted producer price. When a machine builder adds capability and charges more for it, BLS attempts to strip out the value of the improvement, so the index tracks price for equivalent equipment. Over four decades that adjustment is why machinery has climbed far less than headline inflation: the machines got better faster than they got dearer.

Machinery and equipment PPI, May 2026: 199.10 index (1982=100). Archived readings run from 185.22 in May 2025 to 199.10 in May 2026; the latest print sits 100% of the way up that range.

What is inside the basket, and what moves it

The aggregate spans the machinery U.S. factories buy and build: metalworking machine tools, engines and turbines, pumps and compressors, material-handling equipment, construction and agricultural machinery, and general industrial gear. Its drivers are the machine builders' own costs, steel and castings, motors, drives and controls, skilled assembly labor, plus the state of their order books. That last part is what makes the index smoother and slower than raw-material PPIs: machinery is quoted with lead times measured in months, so builders reprice deliberately, and increases stick mainly when backlogs are full. Steel and component-cost shocks pass through with a lag; tariffs on imported machinery and parts show up the same way. The result is an index that turns gradually, which is exactly what makes its direction worth respecting when it does turn.

Machinery repriced deliberately: increases stick when order books are full, which is why this index turns slowly, and why its turns matter.

Using the index on a real quote

The most common practical use is refreshing a stale quote. A machine quoted at $250,000 a year ago, escalated at the index's trailing pace, prices today at roughly $268,729, a difference of about $18,729. That arithmetic works in both directions: it tells a buyer whether a builder's requote is in line with the published market, and it gives a capex planner a defensible inflation assumption for equipment budgeted this year but ordered next. The index will not price any specific machine, but it keeps every machinery number in a plan honest.

Feed the current equipment price into the machine hour rate calculator to see what today's machinery market does to your shop rate. Turn machine price into hourly cost

Published 2026-07-13.