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. 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 future increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 35.0 in November 2025, compared to 40.0 in the previous month.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 345 observations overall. The series covers the span of time going from January 1997 to November 2025.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few simple statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index averaged 37.2; it recorded a maximum of 73.0 in December 2021; it hit a minimum of 0.0 in April 2020.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | 48.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | 40.0 |
| 2025-11-30 | 35.0 |
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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) |
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