What federal data says about your material costs
Most numbers quoted about contractor material costs come from companies selling something, with no method attached. These do not. Every study here is built from free federal price data, every series is named and linked, and you can reproduce any figure yourself.
Series current through Jul 2026. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index.
Electrical Distributor Margins Doubled. Contractor Prices Rose 38%.
Between December 2019 and June 2026 the gross margin index for electrical goods wholesalers rose 96.5%, while electrical contractors raised their own output prices 38.0%. Plumbing and HVAC wholesalers, over the same months, rose 30.1%.
Federal price data shows the gross margin on electrical goods distribution nearly doubled since 2019 while electrical contractors could raise their own prices only 38%. Who absorbed the difference.
PCU423600423600PCU423700423700PCU23821X23821XPCU23822X23822XWPU10260314
Materials Are 31% of Electrical Revenue, Not 50%. Twice Measured.
Materials were 31.43% of the value of construction work for electrical contractors and 32.49% for plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors in the 2022 Economic Census, within a quarter of a point of the same ratio measured in 2017.
The Economic Census measured material cost against value of construction work in two cycles five years apart. Both times it came out near a third, not the 40 to 60 percent vendors repeat.
How this research works
Everything here comes from the Producer Price Index and the Economic Census, both published by the federal government and free to anyone. We do not survey contractors, and we do not publish anything drawn from customer invoices.
Two limits worth stating plainly. Producer price indexes measure prices at the factory gate, not the price on your counter ticket, so they tell you what the market did rather than what your branch charged you. And BLS marks recent months preliminary and revises them, so figures flagged (P) can move.
The gap between the index and your invoice is the entire point. If the market moved 4% and your price moved 9%, the difference is a conversation with your supplier.