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 surveyd by the FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for wages (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 44.0 in February 2026, compared to 39.0 in the previous month.
Sample. In the monthly series presented in the chart, there are 348 observations in total. The period covered by the series goes from January 1997 to February 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of a few statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached a maximum of 73.0 in December 2021; it reached its minimum of 0.0 in April 2020; it had a mean of 37.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-12-31 | 45.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 39.0 |
| 2026-02-28 | 44.0 |
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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.