Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Wages: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - 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 based in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for wages (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 46.0 in February 2026, versus 42.0 in the previous month.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 348 observations in total. The series covers the span of time extending from January 1997 to February 2026.
History. Here are a few descriptive statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 37.3; it reached its minimum of -2.0 in April 2020; it recorded its highest level of 81.0 in December 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-12-31 | 48.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 42.0 |
| 2026-02-28 | 46.0 |
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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 | No |
| 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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