Method
Sources
The four index lines are the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index series, monthly and not seasonally adjusted. Each month carries the date this site read it.
- Resilient floor coverings
- Series WPU1232, from January 1947. The agency’s page: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WPU1232
- Hardwood flooring
- Series WPU081204, from June 1984. The agency’s page: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WPU081204
- Clay floor and wall tile
- Series WPU134401, from January 1975. The agency’s page: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WPU134401
- Carpets and rugs
- Series WPU1231, from January 1947. The agency’s page: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WPU1231
Announcement rows are read from published sources: manufacturers’ own letters and news posts where they exist, and trade-press reports (so far: Floor Covering News, FloorDaily, Wood Floor Business). Each row lists its sources and the date each was read. List prices come from manufacturers’ own pages, each with its kind and source.
2What is computed, and what is not
The published number is the agency’s number. There is no rescaling, no rebasing and no blending. The only figure computed here is the percent change between two published months, shown for the previous month and for the same month a year earlier. A change is shown only when both months are stored for the line; an absent month is never replaced by the nearest one.
The agency publishes no value for Resilient floor coverings (series WPU1232) from July 2013 to November 2016; the chart line breaks there.
No composite “flooring index” is built from the four lines, and the index names no manufacturer, so an index figure is not any one manufacturer’s price. Nothing on this site forecasts a price or advises a purchase.
3Revisions
The agency revises recent months. A month still open to revision is marked preliminary. When a later read returns a different value for a month already published, the new value replaces the old one, and the table marks that month as revised with the previous value and the date the change was read. Full vintages are not kept.
4What one announcement row is
One row is one decision by one manufacturer: the same manufacturer, scope and effective date. Two outlets reporting the same letter make one row with two sources. One letter covering several brands or categories stays one row, with the brands named in its scope. A later letter that amends, delays or withdraws an earlier one is a new row that points back to it; the earlier row stays published and is marked superseded.
Rows are written as facts in our own words; article text is not copied. Which index lines a row falls under is decided when the row is written. A row whose scope fits none of the four lines is in the record only. On the charts a row is marked at its effective date, or its ship date where the source gives two. The marks sit on a rail below the line, not on it, and no mark is claimed to have caused any movement.
5No laminate series
No official producer price index series for laminate flooring was found, so this site has no laminate line.
6What the record does not cover
- It is not complete. The trade press does not report every manufacturer letter, and its tagging is inconsistent. Only announcements whose source can be shown are listed.
- The roster is a closed list of manufacturers. A manufacturer on it with no row reads “no announcement on record”, which does not mean no increase. A manufacturer on it whose pages were not read is “not read”, and one whose pages were read and showed no list price is “not found on the pages read”. Neither says that it does not publish prices.
- No retailer shelf prices. No import values. No figures from company filings.
- List-price history starts at the first read; earlier history is not reconstructed.
The data file
Every figure on these pages is in one data file, /data/index-v1.json, which is what the pages are built from. Data last read .