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 recent survey data about manufacturing firms 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 47.0 in May 2026, versus 45.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 351 observations overall in the monthly time series displayed in the plot above. The series covers the time span extending from January 1997 to May 2026.
History. Have a look at some statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index hit a minimum of -2.0 in April 2020; it reached its maximum of 81.0 in December 2021; it had an average value of 37.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | 40.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 45.0 |
| 2026-05-31 | 47.0 |
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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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