Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Wages: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - Richmond FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for wages (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 13.0 in September 2025, compared to 22.0 in August.
Sample. There are 259 data points in the monthly time series presented in the chart above. The series covers the time period stretching from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few summary statistics calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index recorded a bottom of -9.0 in April 2009; it achieved a maximum of 48.0 in July 2021; it had an average value of 14.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 17.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 22.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 13.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did wages 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 Richmond |
| Source type | Central bank |
| Data licence | Not copyrightable under U.S. law |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |