Empire State Manufacturing Survey: General business activity: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - NY FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Empire State Manufacturing Survey (NY FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on manufacturing firms' responses to the Empire State Survey carried out by the New York FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 4.6 in August 2025, compared to 11.0 in July.
Sample. In this montly series, there are 290 data points. The span of time covered by the series goes from July 2001 to August 2025.
History. Here’s a quick look at some descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index achieved a maximum of 72.0 in April 2002; it reached a trough of -23.0 in September 2001; it was equal on average to 34.5.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-06-30 | 12.8 |
| 2025-07-31 | 11.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 4.6 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will general business activity increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading indicator of the business cycle |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Seasonally adjusted | No |
| Rescaling | None |
| Frequency | Montly |
| 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) |