Live · Manufacturing pulse

The U.S. manufacturing pulse.

A live dashboard of U.S. manufacturing: input costs, factory demand and capacity, interest rates, and trade flows, from cited public agency series.

Input costs right now

  • Industrial electricity: 9.77 cents per kWh, U.S. average (EIA, Jul 2026).
  • Industrial natural gas: 4.58 per Mcf (EIA, Jul 2026).
  • On-highway diesel: $6.38 per gallon (EIA, week of 2026-09-28).
  • WTI crude: $96.16 per barrel (EIA, 2026-09-29).
  • Steel mill products PPI: 381.162, up 23.4% year over year (BLS, Aug 2026).
  • Nonferrous mill shapes PPI: 399.03, up 23.3% year over year (BLS, Aug 2026).
  • Primary nonferrous metals PPI: 544.731, up 49.3% year over year (BLS, Aug 2026).
  • Plastic resins PPI: 280.569, up 6.6% year over year (BLS, Aug 2026).

Demand and factory activity

  • U.S. manufacturing runs at 75.7% of capacity (Federal Reserve, Aug 2026).
  • Industrial production index: 99.0964, up 1% year over year (Federal Reserve, Aug 2026).
  • New factory orders: $664B per month, up 9.9% year over year (Census, Jul 2026).
  • Truck tonnage index: 113.5, down 0.4% year over year (BTS via FRED, Jul 2026).
  • Housing starts: 1,275k annual rate, down 1.2% year over year (Census, Aug 2026).
  • Light vehicle sales: 16.6 million annual rate, up 1.4% year over year (BEA, Aug 2026).
  • Manufacturing job openings: 522k nationally (BLS JOLTS, Aug 2026).
  • Manufacturing hourly earnings, production and nonsupervisory employees: $30.37 (BLS, Aug 2026).

The cost of money and sourcing

  • Prime lending rate: 7.00% (Federal Reserve, 2026-09-28).
  • Effective fed funds rate: 3.88% (Federal Reserve, 2026-09-29).
  • 10-year Treasury yield: 5.26% (Federal Reserve, 2026-09-29).
  • Chinese yuan: 6.711 per USD (Federal Reserve H.10, 2026-09-25).
  • Mexican peso: 17.6932 per USD (Federal Reserve H.10, 2026-09-25).
  • Euro: 1.14 per USD (Federal Reserve H.10, 2026-09-25).

Trade flows this month

  • Iron and steel: $2.2B imported, $1.6B exported, a $0.5B trade deficit (Census, Jul 2026).
  • Aluminum: $2.7B imported, $1.5B exported, a $1.2B trade deficit (Census, Jul 2026).
  • Copper: $3.7B imported, $1.5B exported, a $2.3B trade deficit (Census, Jul 2026).
  • Machinery and mechanical appliances: $93.9B imported, $26.7B exported, a $67.2B trade deficit (Census, Jul 2026).
  • Electrical machinery and equipment: $56.9B imported, $22.4B exported, a $34.5B trade deficit (Census, Jul 2026).
  • Vehicles: $28.2B imported, $10.9B exported, a $17.3B trade deficit (Census, Jul 2026).
  • Plastics: $6.4B imported, $7.2B exported, a $0.8B trade surplus (Census, Jul 2026).
  • Rubber: $2.8B imported, $1.2B exported, a $1.6B trade deficit (Census, Jul 2026).

Sources and update cadence

  • Every number comes from a cited EIA, BLS, Census Bureau, Federal Reserve, BEA, BTS, or IMF series and is republished only when a value actually changes.
  • Each metric with history has its own archived series page, and the matching calculators preload these benchmarks next to their inputs.

Last reviewed 2026-10-01.