Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: General business activity: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - 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 unadjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 17.9 in January 2026, compared to -23.1 in December 2025.
Sample. There are 693 observations in the monthly time series presented in the graph above. The time period covered by the series extends from May 1968 to January 2026.
History. Take a look at a few simple statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index recorded a bottom of -76.0 in December 1974; it achieved a maximum of 67.0 in March 1973; it had an average value of 8.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | -9.7 |
| 2025-12-31 | -23.1 |
| 2026-01-31 | 17.9 |
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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 | No |
| 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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