File – A consist of John Deere tractors sit in Norfolk Southern’s Conway Yard in Conway, Pa., Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. On Thursday, the Labor Department releases the producer price index for January, an indicator of inflation at the wholesale level that’s closely monitored by the Federal Reserve. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wholesale prices in the United States reaccelerated in January, indicating that inflation pressures continue to underlie the U.S. economy despite longer-term signs of improvement. From December to January, the government’s producer price index jumped 0.7%, driven up in part by a 5% surge in energy prices. That surge compared with a 0.2% drop from November to December, and it was nearly twice the increase that economists had been expecting. The producer price data can provide an early sign of how fast consumer inflation will rise. While the monthly inflation surge was worse than expected, price increases measured over the past 12 months continued to show a slowdown.