Empire State Manufacturing Survey: General business activity: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - NY FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Empire State Manufacturing Survey (NY FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the State of New York, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 20.6 in August 2026, compared to 15.6 in July.
Sample. This monthly time series has 302 observations in total. The time period covered by the series is from July 2001 to August 2026.
History. Have a look at some descriptive statistics computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached its highest level of 39.0 in April 2004; it hit a trough of -80.0 in April 2020; it had a mean value of 6.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-06-30 | 5.7 |
| 2026-07-31 | 15.6 |
| 2026-08-31 | 20.6 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did general business activity increase or decrease in the past month? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Coincident indicator of the business cycle |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Seasonally adjusted | Yes |
| Rescaling | None |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | Federal Reserve Bank of New York |
| Source type | Central bank |
| Data licence | Free use subject to conditions |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
Series in the same data set
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