Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Wage and benefit costs: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about nonmanufacturing firms collected by the Federal Reserve in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for wage and benefit costs (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 43.2 in September 2026, compared to 38.2 in August.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 187 records. The time period covered by the series extends from March 2011 to September 2026.
History. Take a look at a few simple statistics calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index recorded a bottom of -33.3 in April 2020; it hit a maximum of 61.3 in June 2022; it had a mean of 33.5.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 33.3000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 38.2000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 43.2000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did wage and benefit costs 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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