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. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 18.1 in March 2026, compared to 16.3 in February 2026.
Sample. There are 695 observations in the monthly series shown in the figure above. The series covers the period going from May 1968 to March 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of a few descriptive statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded a minimum of -58.7 in April 2020; it recorded its maximum of 58.5 in March 1973; it averaged 8.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-01-31 | 12.6 |
| 2026-02-28 | 16.3 |
| 2026-03-31 | 18.1 |
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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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