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. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -9.7 in November 2025, compared to -6.1 in October 2025.
Sample. The monthly series plotted above has 691 data points. The time range covered by the series is from May 1968 to November 2025.
History. Here's a peek at a few statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index had an average value of 8.8; it registered a minimum of -76.0 in December 1974; it peaked at 67.0 in March 1973.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | 25.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | -6.1 |
| 2025-11-30 | -9.7 |
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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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