Average Fed Mfg Survey: Wages: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - FSR - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Average Fed Mfg Survey (FetchSeries Research)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on an average of regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for wages was 49.5 (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) in September 2026, versus 41.5 in August.
Sample. There are 267 data points overall in the monthly series shown in the chart above. The series covers the time range extending from June 2004 to September 2026.
History. Here are a few summary statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index had an average value of 38.0; it recorded a minimum of -2.4 in April 2020; it reached its highest level of 74.0 in December 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 40.5500 |
| 2026-08-31 | 41.4500 |
| 2026-09-30 | 49.5500 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will wages and benefits increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading indicator of the business cycle |
| Seasonally adjusted | No |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Rescaling | None |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | FetchSeries Research calculations on Federal Reserve data |
| Source type | Data research lab |
| Data licence | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) + FetchSeries disclaimers |
| Other information | Arithmetic average across 2 regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys |
| FSR temporal aggregation code | LM01 |
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