Guides | Conshy Contracting

Construction wages in the Philadelphia metro area, May 2025

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, known as OEWS, reports what employers in the Philadelphia area pay workers in each occupation. Its May 2025 estimates, which BLS posted in May 2026, put the median hourly wage for construction and extraction occupations in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro area at $30.56. The median is the middle wage, with half of workers earning more and half less. Across all occupations in the metro area, the median was $26.11.

Wages by occupation

The table lists 23 occupations a general or specialty contractor around Conshohocken is likely to employ, sorted by median hourly wage.

Employment and wages, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro area, May 2025
Occupation	SOC code	Employment	Median hourly wage	Mean hourly wage	Mean annual wage
Elevator and escalator installers and repairers	47-4021	540	$63.77	$60.64	$126,140
Construction managers	11-9021	3,390	$60.09	$64.96	$135,120
Structural iron and steel workers	47-2221	800	$49.68	$44.63	$92,840
First-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers	47-1011	10,700	$46.08	$47.80	$99,420
Cost estimators	13-1051	4,190	$38.40	$41.97	$87,290
Sheet metal workers	47-2211	1,530	$37.09	$38.93	$80,970
Brickmasons and blockmasons	47-2021	1,210	$36.52	$37.72	$78,460
Construction and building inspectors	47-4011	2,900	$36.40	$36.82	$76,580
Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters	47-2152	7,150	$35.99	$40.22	$83,660
Electricians	47-2111	10,090	$35.86	$39.29	$81,720
Tile and stone setters	47-2044	390	$34.01	$33.40	$69,480
Operating engineers and other construction equipment operators	47-2073	5,620	$32.12	$36.16	$75,200
Heating, air conditioning and refrigeration mechanics and installers	49-9021	8,610	$31.05	$33.38	$69,440
Glaziers	47-2121	710	$29.90	$33.71	$70,120
Carpenters	47-2031	14,260	$29.70	$31.70	$65,930
Drywall and ceiling tile installers	47-2081	980	$29.46	$29.64	$61,660
Cement masons and concrete finishers	47-2051	1,870	$29.28	$31.66	$65,860
Roofers	47-2181	1,530	$28.72	$29.29	$60,930
Painters, construction and maintenance	47-2141	3,360	$27.60	$27.79	$57,810
Construction laborers	47-2061	14,580	$26.50	$28.34	$58,940
Helpers, pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters	47-3015	420	$21.43	$21.81	$45,370
Helpers, carpenters	47-3012	340	$19.84	$20.38	$42,380
Helpers, electricians	47-3013	580	$18.58	$19.46	$40,470

Source: data.bls.gov

Construction laborers and carpenters are the largest groups in the table, with 14,580 and 14,260 jobs. Their median hourly wages were $26.50 and $29.70. Electricians, with 10,090 jobs, had a median of $35.86. Construction managers had a median of $60.09 an hour, and cost estimators $38.40.

The mean, or average, sits above the median for 20 of the 23 occupations in the table. When that happens, a smaller group of higher earners is pulling the average up. For electricians the mean was $39.29 against a median of $35.86. For plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters it was $40.22 against $35.99.

The helper occupations show the gap between a helper and the trade they assist. Helpers to electricians had a median of $18.58 an hour, about half the electricians’ median. Helpers to carpenters had a median of $19.84. First-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers, with 10,700 jobs, had a median of $46.08.

Across the whole construction and extraction group, BLS counted 90,110 jobs in the metro area, with a mean hourly wage of $34.78 and a mean annual wage of $72,350.

BLS did not release wage estimates for carpet installers or for reinforcing iron and rebar workers in this area, so they are left out of the table.

What the numbers measure

OEWS wages are straight-time gross pay. In its technical notes for the May 2024 estimates, BLS says they include base rate, cost-of-living allowances, guaranteed pay, hazardous-duty pay, incentive pay and tips, and exclude overtime, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses and the employer’s cost of benefits. Annual figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours, so a mean annual wage assumes a full year of 40-hour weeks.

The survey counts wage and salary workers only. Self-employed workers, and owners and partners of unincorporated firms, are not included. The same technical notes describe a sample of employers surveyed over three years, with wages from the earlier panels adjusted to the reference date.

Each estimate carries a relative standard error, a measure of how precise it is, where a smaller number means a more precise estimate. For the employment counts in this table it runs from 2.5% for first-line supervisors to 30.1% for helpers of pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters. Treat counts and wages for the small occupations with more caution than those for the large ones.

The Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro area spans parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. The OEWS query system returned no May 2025 estimates for the Montgomery County-Bucks County-Chester County division, so the metro area is the closest published geography to Conshohocken.

Using the table

When you set a pay rate for a new hire, compare it with the median and the mean for the occupation, and remember that both leave out overtime and benefits.
When you build labor rates into an estimate, add your own burden for payroll taxes, insurance and benefits on top of the wage. OEWS does not include the employer’s cost of benefits.
Public work is different. On a project covered by Pennsylvania’s Prevailing Wage Act, the rate comes from the Department of Labor and Industry’s determination for that project, and the department says a prevailing rate can combine cash wages and fringe benefits. See the prevailing wage guide.

BLS publishes new OEWS estimates once a year. The full tables, including the 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentile wages, are on the BLS OEWS tables page.

How Pennsylvania's Prevailing Wage Act applies to public construction jobs

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pennsylvania’s Prevailing Wage Act, Act 442 of 1961, requires contractors to pay rates set by the state on a public work. The Department of Labor and Industry describes a public work as construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration or repair, other than maintenance, done under contract and paid for in whole or in part with a public body’s money. The project’s estimated total cost has to be over $25,000, and a project cannot be split into pieces to stay under that threshold. The department’s Bureau of Labor Law Compliance sets the rates and enforces them.

What counts as a public work

The public body can be the state, a state authority or agency, a state or state-related university, or a political subdivision: a county, city, borough, incorporated town, township, school district, vocational school district or county institution. Around Conshohocken that covers the boroughs, the townships, Montgomery County and the school districts.

The public body does not have to sign the construction contract. Labor and Industry’s FAQ says the wage is owed whenever the work is financed in whole or in part with public funds, and gives the example of a private developer that receives any public financing for a commercial project. The project’s total cost decides coverage, not the size of the public share.

Maintenance work is excluded. The department defines it as repairing existing facilities without changing their size, type or extent, or patching a facility back to usable condition. It lists work that is not maintenance and needs prevailing wages, including:

In-kind sidewalk replacement
Roof replacement
Road milling and replacement
Repair and rehabilitation of manholes
Painting beyond covering minor imperfections

Other exclusions on the department’s list include off-site work, material suppliers who do not work at the site, supervisors who do not use tools, and projects where the federal government requires federal prevailing wages and the cost exceeds $2,000.

Locally funded highway and bridge projects follow a different threshold. For contracts after January 1, 2014, those projects require prevailing wages when the total cost exceeds $100,000. The FAQ defines them by funding source, such as the state’s liquid fuels allocation to municipalities or a municipality’s own tax revenue.

How rates are set

Labor and Industry issues a rate determination for each project, and the rates belong in the bid specifications. It sets rates for four kinds of work:

Rate type	What the department includes
Building	A sheltered enclosure with walk-in access for people, equipment or supplies, with its utilities and incidental grading and paving
Highway	Roads, streets, alleys, trails, paths, parking areas and similar work not incidental to building construction
Heavy	Work that is not building, highway or residential, such as bridges, dams, pipelines, antenna towers and sewage work not needed for a building
Residential	A detached single-family home, a single condominium unit, a unit in a duplex or a single townhouse

Rates are based on collective bargaining agreements and other data for each craft in the county where the work happens, and a rate may combine cash wages and fringe benefits. Montgomery County falls in the department’s five-county area with Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties. For that area, the department’s prevailing wage page links notes on which tasks belong to the building laborer classification, along with notes for heavy and highway laborers and definitions for operators.

An interested party can challenge a rate determination within 10 days after the contract specifications are published and issued.

What the contractor has to do

The FAQ lists these duties for the prime contractor and every subcontractor:

Pay each worker the prevailing rate for the trade and classification of the work performed. Paying by lump sum or piece rate violates the act.
Keep records of each worker’s name, classification, daily hours, hourly rate including benefits, and deductions, along with timecards, fringe benefit records and apprentice indentures.
Submit certified payrolls to the public body every week. Falsifying one can be prosecuted as a criminal misdemeanor.
Keep records for at least two years and make them available to the department and the public body.
Post the project’s rates at the site for the length of the job.

Overtime for work over 40 hours a week is paid at 1.5 times the prevailing rate. A contractor can take credit for contributions it makes to bona fide fringe benefit plans, such as health insurance, vacation and retirement. Per diem, motel rooms, transportation to the site, tool rental, logo clothing, company meals and holiday bonuses do not count, the department says.

Penalties

For an intentional violation, the department lists debarment from public works contracts for three years, payment of the wages owed, possible referral to the Attorney General for liquidated damages, and possible removal from the project. Examples it gives of intentional violations include false certification, misclassifying workers to pay a lower rate, and paying preset ratios of craft and laborer time instead of the hours worked. A contractor accused of a violation can contest it at an administrative hearing.

A bill to change the act

Senate Bill 908 would amend the act’s definitions, its section on specifications and the duties of the Secretary of Labor and Industry. The Senate passed it 37 to 13 on June 10, 2026, and the House referred it to its Labor and Industry Committee on June 12, 2026, according to the General Assembly’s bill page. As of October 3, 2026, it had not become law.

The Pennsylvania Utility Contractors Association, which opposes the bill, summarized the Senate-passed version in an update to its members: it would add HVAC duct cleaning and custom off-site fabrication for a public work to the act’s coverage, exempt rehabilitation of up to eight units of residential housing, and exempt school safety projects paid from grant funds up to $50,000. The association reports that the Senate tabled an amendment that would have raised the $25,000 threshold to $2,500,000.

Where to get rates and answers

Search existing rate determinations or request one through Labor and Industry’s prevailing wage system, linked from the department’s prevailing wage page. The Bureau of Labor Law Compliance answers project questions at 1-800-932-0665, choosing the prevailing wage option, or by email at ra-li-slmr-llc@pa.gov.

For a question about how the act applies to a project you are bidding, ask the bureau or a labor lawyer before you price the job. For what local tradespeople earn on private work, see construction wages in the Philadelphia area.

Where public construction bids are posted for Conshohocken-area work

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Public construction work around Conshohocken is advertised in several places, and each owner uses its own system. Montgomery County posts its solicitations on Bonfire, an online bidding service. PennDOT lets its construction contracts through its Engineering and Construction Management System, called ECMS. State agencies post on PA eMarketplace. School districts, boroughs and townships each advertise their own projects. Registration is free on the county’s system, and PennDOT requires a business partner registration before you can bid.

Montgomery County

The county’s Office of Procurement buys under the Second Class County Code and the Montgomery County Procurement Code. In most cases, the office says, any purchase over $24,500 has to be publicly advertised and competitively bid unless an exception applies. The office also manages the county’s construction purchases.

The county uses Bonfire, run by Euna Solutions, for its solicitations. Anyone can view current solicitations and construction determinations on the county’s Bonfire portal, but downloading documents and submitting a proposal requires a free account. When you register, pick every National Institute of Governmental Purchasing commodity code, a standard list of product and service categories, that fits your work. The county sends notices of new solicitations to vendors by those codes, and it asks vendors to select all the codes that cover what they could provide.

For help with an account, the county points vendors to Bonfire’s support team and the help center inside the portal.

PennDOT

PennDOT’s construction contracts, consultant agreements and project information run through ECMS. To submit bids, a firm registers as a PennDOT business partner. A construction contractor can register as a prime or subcontractor, as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise supplier, or as a service provider such as a hauler.

Registration has two parts, and PennDOT approves a business partner only when both are done:

A paper Agreement to Authorize Electronic Access to PennDOT Systems, signed and emailed to the address on PennDOT’s registration page.
An online registration form, reached through PennDOT’s business partner site with Microsoft Edge in Internet Explorer mode.

PennDOT says approval typically takes two weeks after it has both parts. Business partner registration does not replace prequalification or DBE certification, which have their own processes through PennDOT’s Prequalification Office. PennDOT’s page also links to the Commonwealth’s vendor registration site. PennDOT’s IT Service Desk handles ECMS questions at 717-783-8330 or 855-783-8330.

Highway and bridge projects that a municipality pays for entirely from local sources, such as its liquid fuels allocation, have a separate prevailing wage threshold of $100,000. See the prevailing wage guide.

State agencies

PA eMarketplace is the Commonwealth’s portal for bids, awards and other contract information. It lists open solicitations, bid tabulations, awards, contracts, sole source and emergency procurements, upcoming procurements and the state’s debarment list.

COSTARS

COSTARS is the state’s cooperative purchasing program, run by the Department of General Services. It lets local governments, schools, libraries and certain nonprofits buy supplies and services through contracts the state manages, without running their own bid. A supplier gets onto a COSTARS contract by registering in the PA Supplier Portal, getting a six-digit vendor number and responding to the program’s contract solicitations. The program’s line is 1-866-768-7827.

A township or school district may buy from a COSTARS contract instead of advertising a job itself. A supplier holding a COSTARS contract can sell to those members without a separate bid for each one.

School districts and municipalities

Colonial School District posts its requests for proposals on its finance department page. The page says the district issues requests for proposals for contracted services each year and advertises current ones there. Where the district advertises construction bids could not be verified from that page, so ask its business office.

Boroughs and townships advertise their own public works and building projects. Check the bid or news pages of Conshohocken, West Conshohocken, Plymouth and Whitemarsh, and the agendas of their councils.

Before you bid public work

Register on each system you plan to use well before a bid is due. PennDOT’s approval alone takes about two weeks.
Check the bid documents for prevailing wage rates. Pennsylvania’s Prevailing Wage Act covers public construction projects with an estimated total cost over $25,000, according to the Department of Labor and Industry.
Look up the debarment lists on PA eMarketplace and on Labor and Industry’s prevailing wage pages for any subcontractor you plan to carry.

Bid and procurement rules differ by owner. For a question about a particular solicitation, ask the contact named in it.

Contractor registration and the building code in Conshohocken and nearby townships

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Pennsylvania does not license most construction contractors or their employees, according to the Department of Labor and Industry. What applies instead is a set of registrations. A contractor who does at least $5,000 of home improvement work a year registers with the Attorney General, and each municipality around Conshohocken keeps its own contractor registration tied to the building permit. All of those municipalities have chosen to enforce the state building code themselves.

The state home improvement registration

The Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act, Act 132 of 2008, requires contractors who offer or perform home improvements in Pennsylvania to register with the Office of Attorney General. Two groups are exempt: contractors who do less than $5,000 of home improvement work in a calendar year, and retailers with a net worth over $50 million. Subcontractors who never sign a contract with a homeowner still have to register, the Attorney General’s FAQ says.

The act’s definition of home improvement covers work on a private residence and its land. It leaves out the construction of a new home, and the Attorney General’s FAQ says the law does not apply to work on commercial properties.

Fee: $100 every two years for new and renewal registrations, according to the Attorney General’s registration page, which says a change in the state Fiscal Code raised it. Updates to an existing registration cost nothing.
Insurance: liability coverage of at least $50,000 for personal injury and at least $50,000 for property damage.
Your number: the registration number, written as “PA” and digits, has to appear on every advertisement, contract, estimate and proposal.
Changes: the FAQ says registration information has to be updated within 30 days of a change, such as a new insurance policy.

The Attorney General’s online registration system came back into service on April 24, 2026, after an outage. The office says contractors whose businesses started, or whose registrations expired, after August 8, 2025 could keep working during the outage, and those who had not filed on paper had until June 8, 2026 to register online. Registrations, renewals and updates now go through that system.

The act also sets rules for the contract itself. A home improvement contract over $500 has to be in writing and signed by both parties. On a contract over $5,000, the deposit is capped at one-third of the price, or one-third plus the cost of special-order materials named in the contract. A time-and-materials contract can run no more than 10% over the written initial cost estimate without a change order the owner signs, the FAQ says.

State licenses for particular trades

The Department of Labor and Industry lists the state credentials that do exist:

Crane operators are licensed by the State Board of Crane Operators at the Department of State.
Asbestos and lead abatement contractors and workers are certified by Labor and Industry.
Manufactured home installers are certified under the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act.

Some municipalities license or certify trades themselves, most often electricians and plumbers, Labor and Industry says. The department keeps no record of which ones do, and it sends contractors to the municipality where the work will happen.

Local registration

The state act limits what a municipality can charge a registered home improvement contractor. Section 517.12 says registration with the state precludes a municipal registration fee or license for a home improvement contractor, while leaving municipalities free to require building permits and charge a reasonable fee for them. It keeps in place licensing for electricians, plumbers and other trades that rests on testing or training, and local liability insurance standards adopted before January 1, 2006.

The four municipalities nearest Conshohocken post these requirements, as checked October 3, 2026:

Municipality	What it posts	Fee on the form or page
Conshohocken Borough	Separate registration forms for commercial contractors, residential contractors and plumbers, filed with Licenses and Inspections	$90 each; the residential fee is waived for contractors registered with the Attorney General
West Conshohocken Borough	A contractor registration form on its Forms & Permits page, updated May 26, 2026	Could not be verified
Plymouth Township	Contractor registration through its online permit portal or a paper form, with separate master plumber, journeyman plumber and fire protection contractor registrations	$100, collected for commercial work and for residential work by a contractor without a state number
Whitemarsh Township	Registration required before the township issues a building permit	No fee, except $50 for plumbers

Conshohocken’s forms ask for more insurance than the state minimum: $100,000 to $300,000 for bodily injury, at least $100,000 for property damage, public liability and products liability, and at least $50,000 for completed operations, with the borough named as certificate holder. A contractor with no employees checks a box saying so, and the form then has to be notarized. The form says a contractor may not have employees do the work unless it has given the borough proof of workers’ compensation insurance.

Plymouth’s form asks for a current certificate of insurance and proof of workers’ compensation, or a signed and notarized waiver. Its registration expires on December 31 of the year it is issued or when the state registration expires. The form also warns that failing to close out permits at the end of a project could lead the township to suspend or revoke a registration.

Whitemarsh asks for proof of workers’ compensation insurance with the township as certificate holder, or its exemption form. A master plumber has to show proof from the institution or municipality that certified them, and a journeyman lists the master plumber they work for.

Upper Merion and Lower Merion run their own code offices as well. Ask each one for its registration form before you pull a first permit there.

The Uniform Construction Code

The Uniform Construction Code is Pennsylvania’s statewide building code, built on International Code Council codes as reviewed by the state’s UCC Review and Advisory Council. A municipality can enforce it with its own staff or a certified third-party agency, or opt out and leave enforcement to the state and to agencies the owner hires.

Labor and Industry’s list of municipalities, revised October 1, 2026, shows that Conshohocken, West Conshohocken, Plymouth, Whitemarsh, Upper Merion and Lower Merion all opted in. In opt-in municipalities, the department says, it has no code enforcement authority, apart from elevators, state-owned buildings and accessibility review where a municipality lacks a certified accessibility inspector. The same list marks each of them with “Amendments,” meaning the municipality carried over local building code provisions that were in its ordinances before July 1, 1999. Labor and Industry says it has no record of what those provisions are, so ask the municipality.

Recent changes to the code, from Labor and Industry’s pages:

The latest triennial update to the UCC took effect January 1, 2026, after the Independent Regulatory Review Commission approved it on October 16, 2025.
The 2021 accessibility updates remain blocked by an October 26, 2022 Commonwealth Court ruling, so buildings still have to meet the 2018 accessibility requirements.
Amendments to the elevator and lifting device rules in Chapter 405 take effect December 20, 2026. Labor and Industry keeps sole jurisdiction over elevators everywhere in the state, along with state-owned buildings.
The UCC Review and Advisory Council set October 4, 2026 as the deadline for public comments on sections of the 2024 codes, which it is now reviewing.

State law adds a surcharge to every building permit a municipality or third-party agency issues. Act 36 of 2017 raised it from $4.00 to $4.50.

Before your first permit in a new municipality

Call the code office and ask for its contractor registration form, the insurance limits it wants, and the exact name to put as certificate holder.
If you employ plumbers or electricians, ask whether the municipality registers or licenses those trades separately.
Keep your Attorney General number current and on every estimate and proposal, since municipal forms ask for it.

For questions about how the home improvement act applies to a particular contract, talk to a lawyer. For insurance limits, talk to your agent or broker.

Construction jobs, housing permits and materials prices for Montgomery County

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Three public series give a regular reading on construction work around Conshohocken. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts construction jobs in Montgomery, Bucks and Chester counties every month. The Census Bureau counts the new housing units that Montgomery County’s municipalities authorize with building permits, and publishes the full year each spring. Material prices come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly producer price indexes, which are national.

In the latest figures, checked October 3, 2026, the three counties had 59,500 construction jobs in August 2026, 2.1% fewer than in August 2025, and the county authorized 2,231 new housing units in 2025. Producer prices for construction materials in August 2026 were 10.1% above their level a year earlier.

Construction jobs

The Bureau of Labor Statistics runs the Current Employment Statistics survey, a monthly count of jobs on employer payrolls. It publishes a series for the Montgomery County-Bucks County-Chester County metropolitan division, a BLS area made of those three counties. The series for this area combines construction with mining and logging, and BLS titles it “mining, logging, and construction.”

The August 2026 figure is preliminary, and BLS marks it that way in its data. It counts 59,500 jobs, not seasonally adjusted, which is 1,300 fewer than in August 2025. Each month from December 2025 through August 2026 came in below the same month a year earlier.

Mining, logging and construction jobs, Montgomery, Bucks and Chester counties, not seasonally adjusted. August 2026 is preliminary.
Month	2025	2026	Change
January	55,200	54,100	-1,100
February	55,300	51,900	-3,400
March	57,000	55,500	-1,500
April	58,700	58,500	-200
May	59,900	58,300	-1,600
June	60,200	59,300	-900
July	60,600	59,800	-800
August	60,800	59,500	-1,300

Source: fred.stlouisfed.org

The figures are not seasonally adjusted, meaning the regular rise and fall through the year is left in, so compare a month with the same month of an earlier year. Winter months run lower: February 2026 counted 51,900 jobs and August 59,500.

The annual average for 2025 was 58,600 jobs. That is the highest annual average in the series, which starts in 1990. The lowest since 2000 came in 2010, at 44,600.

For the wider region, the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro area counted 128,300 mining, logging and construction jobs in August 2026, not seasonally adjusted, 1.0% fewer than in August 2025. FRED lists October 20, 2026 as the next release date for both series.

Housing permits

The Census Bureau’s Building Permits Survey covers new privately owned residential construction. Each permit-issuing borough and township reports the housing units it authorizes, and the Census Bureau adds them up by county. Montgomery County’s municipalities authorized 2,231 units in 2025, 10.4% fewer than the 2,490 they authorized in 2024. The Census Bureau released the final 2025 figures on May 14, 2026.

Montgomery County authorized 2,231 new housing units in 2025

New privately owned housing units authorized by building permits, Montgomery County, Pa., per year

Source: fred.stlouisfed.org

Over the 36 years in the series, the county’s total ranged from 800 units in 2009 to 3,800 in 1998. The 10 years from 2016 through 2025 averaged about 2,020 units a year. The 1990s averaged about 3,200.

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission republishes the Census counts by building type and by municipality. Its tables run through 2024. That year the county’s 2,490 units split into 1,877 single-family units, 72 units in buildings with two to four units, and 541 units in buildings with five or more. Conshohocken Borough authorized 11 units in 2024, all single-family.

Because the survey counts new homes and apartments, it leaves out commercial buildings and work on existing buildings. The Montgomery County Planning Commission covers those in its own reports, including a quarterly construction report and an annual report on nonresidential construction, listed on its publications page.

Materials prices

A producer price index tracks the prices that U.S. producers charge for their output. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes indexes for single products, such as steel mill products, and for bundles, such as the goods that go into nonresidential construction.

Producer price indexes, not seasonally adjusted, August 2025 and August 2026. Index levels sit on different base periods, so compare the changes.
Index	Series ID	August 2025	August 2026	Change over the year
Construction materials (special index)	WPUSI012011	341.5	375.9	10.1%
Inputs to nonresidential construction, goods	WPUIP2312001	166.1	180.7	8.8%
Inputs to residential construction, goods	WPUIP2311001	323.8	349.0	7.8%
Steel mill products	WPU1017	308.8	381.2	23.4%
Lumber	WPU081	266.3	286.6	7.6%
Ready-mix concrete	WPU1333	386.4	395.2	2.3%

Source: fred.stlouisfed.org

Steel mill products rose 23.4% over the year, the largest change in the table. Ready-mix concrete rose 2.3%. BLS says all of its producer price data can be revised for up to four months after first publication, so the values for May through August 2026 can still change. The next release, with September 2026 data, is scheduled for October 15, 2026.

These indexes are national. They do not break out southeastern Pennsylvania, and they measure what producers charge, which is not the same as a supplier’s delivered price to your job.

How to use these numbers

When a supplier raises a quote, compare the increase with the index for that product over the same months. A bigger gap is a reason to ask for the supplier’s own cost basis.
When a bid will be held open for months, check the indexes for the materials that carry the most weight in it. A single product can move much more than the construction materials index as a whole, as steel mill products did in the year to August 2026.
For the residential pipeline in a particular township, the county permit total is too broad. Use the planning commission’s reports and the municipality’s planning commission agendas.
For national construction data, see Construction Metrics.

Every series in this guide can be pulled into Excel or Power BI from FRED with the series ID shown in the sources below.