Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Wages: Future (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. Based on a sample of manufacturing firms surveyed by the Fed, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for wages (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 49.0 in October 2026, compared to 50.0 in September 2026.
Sample. The monthly series shown in the plot has 354 observations overall. The series covers the time period stretching from May 1997 to October 2026.
History. Have a look at some descriptive statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded its highest level of 73.0 in December 2021; it recorded a minimum of 0.0 in April 2020; it had a mean of 37.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | 42.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 50.0000 |
| 2026-10-31 | 49.0000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will wages 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 | 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.