Construction Materials Cost Index
July 2025 to July 2026, unadjusted 12-month percent change · source: BLS Producer Price Index news release, July 2026 data (published 2026-08-13) · read 2026-08-17 · updated quarterly (next: November 2026 vintage)
Ask what construction materials cost and you get a shrug; ask what they cost relative to last year and the federal government publishes the answer monthly to a decimal. This page tracks the Producer Price Index for the commodities our calculators deal in. It gets re-read quarterly, every figure is dated, and every figure links to the primary table so you can check us.
The 12-Month Picture
Three Things the Data Says Right Now
Metals are the story. Steel mill products are up 22.5% year over year with five consecutive monthly increases March through July; copper and brass shapes are up 18.4%. If your project is metal-heavy (metal roofing, structural connectors, rebar-dense pours), the quote you got in spring is stale.
Lumber is volatile again. Softwood lumber is +15% YoY, but the path matters more than the level: +12.2% in a single month (March-April), then +8.2% June-July. Framing packages priced more than a few weeks ago deserve a re-check.
Concrete is the calm corner. Cement is actually down 0.7% YoY and concrete products are up just 3.7%, while the asphalt commodity (petroleum-derived) is up 45.4%. The materials under your slab have barely moved; the materials on your roof deck moved with oil.
Full Table
| Commodity (PPI code) | 12-month change | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Steel mill products (10-17) | +22.5% | |
| Copper & brass mill shapes (10-2502) | +18.4% | |
| Softwood lumber (08-11) | +15% | |
| Nonferrous wire & cable (10-26) | +12.2% | |
| Truck freight transportation (30-12) | +10.9% | |
| Lumber (all) (08-1) | +10.1% | |
| Plywood (08-3) | +9.2% | |
| Paving mixtures & blocks (13-94) | +6.6% | |
| Sand, gravel & crushed stone (13-21) | +6.2% | |
| Fabricated structural metal (10-7) | +6.2% | |
| Prepared paint (06-21) | +6.2% | |
| Final demand construction (FD-43) | +5.2% | |
| Plastic construction products (07-21) | +5% | |
| Asphalt felts & coatings (13-6) | +4.6% | |
| Concrete ingredients (13-2) | +4.4% | |
| Hardware (10-4) | +4.3% | |
| Millwork (08-2) | +4.2% | |
| Concrete products (13-3) | +3.7% | |
| Hardwood lumber (08-12) | +3.3% | |
| Cement (13-22) | -0.7% | |
| Bolts, nuts & screws (10-81) | -4% |
Methodology
Every figure is the unadjusted 12-month percent change from BLS PPI Table 2 (July 2026 vintage, published August 13, 2026), transcribed directly from the primary release. Nothing is modeled or smoothed. Two things worth knowing before you cite these numbers. The table is titled “seasonally adjusted” because its monthly columns are; the 12-month column used here is the unadjusted one, which is the column header BLS prints above it. And BLS revises any index for four months after first publication to take in late reports and corrections, so the July 2026 figures above are preliminary and the November re-read may move them. Two things about that table worth stating plainly, because they are the two ways a careful reader could conclude we got it wrong. Its title says "seasonally adjusted", which describes its monthly columns; the 12-month column we take is the one headed "Unadjusted 12-month percent change". And July 2026 figures are marked preliminary: BLS revises indexes for up to four months after publication, so a number here can move slightly before it settles, and the quarterly re-read is partly why. PPI measures producer-gate prices, not retail shelf prices: what you pay at a store also carries wholesale/retail margins and freight (truck freight itself: +10.9% YoY). The trend column plots the monthly index level for each series, pulled from the BLS public API on 2026-08-25 and committed alongside the figures rather than fetched at page load, so what you see is what was read and it carries a date. It shows the path, not a second opinion: the 12-month figures beside it still come from the news-release table. Citation welcome: link this page or the BLS table; both should say the same thing. Our retail-sample prices live on the methodology page.