Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: General business activity: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on firms' responses to the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey carried out by the Philadelphia FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 12.6 in January 2026, compared to -8.8 in December 2025.
Sample. There are 693 observations in the monthly series displayed in the figure above. The series covers the period stretching from May 1968 to January 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of some descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index registered a minimum of -58.7 in April 2020; it hit a peak of 58.5 in March 1973; it was equal on average to 8.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 0.6 |
| 2025-12-31 | -8.8 |
| 2026-01-31 | 12.6 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did general business activity increase or decrease in the past month? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Coincident indicator of the business cycle |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Seasonally adjusted | Yes |
| Rescaling | None |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia |
| 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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