I have a 50 year land lease that started in 1961.  The lease provided
for annual adjustments to the base rent using the Wholesale Price
Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  At some point, the
Wholesale Price Index was discontinued and replaced by another index. 
My questions are as follows:

What is the current evolution of the Wholesale Price Index and where
can I find the index table that would allow for the annual
adjustments?

When a table is reset to 100 as in 1982=100, what does this mean, why
do they do it, and how can I calculate the adjustment?

Hello spencercat-ga,

The most basic and useful answer is that you can create a table for
the Wholesale Price Index, now the Producer Price Index, by going to
the following page, and getting a report for "All Years" for series
id: WPU00000000 .

"Series Report"
U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate

You can also get the statistics just for 1961 to 2003 by going to the
following page, clicking "Commodity Data" under "Most Requested
Statistics", checking "All Commodities", retrieving the data, and then
changing the output so that it goes from 1961 to 2003.
 
"Producer Price Indexes - Get Detailed Statistics"
U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.bls.gov/ppi/#data

There was technically no one "Wholesale Price Index", just as there
was no one "Producer Price Index" after the 1978 change.  However, the
All Commodities Price Index -- shown by the chart produced as
indicated above -- was "popularly called 'the' Wholesale Price Index",
back when your lease was written.

"Chapter 14. Producer Prices" [page 2, left column]
U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/homch14.pdf

The following document explains that the WPI/PPI has been rebased on
several occasions, the last time to 1982=100.  On that occasion, the
BLS took the PPI data that had been expressed on the 1967 base and
recalculated them retroactively on a 1982 base.  (I don't know why the
BLS kept changing the base year -- I suppose to keep the figures for
years after the base year from looking too large.)

"Escalation and Producer Price Indexes: A Guide for Contracting
Parties" (September 1991, Report 807) [page 5]
U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.bls.gov/ro3/fax_9291.pdf

That page, as well as the first couple of pages of the prior document,
indicate the evolution of the WPI/PPI.  You might also be interested
in the FAQ for the PPI, for instance, FAQ number 3.

"Producer Price Indexes - Frequently Asked Questions"
U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.bls.gov/ppi/ppifaq.htm

- justaskscott-ga


Search strategy:

Browsed the BLS site and its PPI page, and searched on the site (
http://www.bls.gov/search/search.asp ) for the following terms, alone
and in combination:

"wholesale price index"
"producer price index"
wpi
ppi
"all commodities price index"
"1982=100"