Empire State Manufacturing Survey: General business activity: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - NY FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Empire State Manufacturing Survey (NY FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on manufacturing firms' responses to the Empire State Survey carried out by the New York FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 7.6 in September 2026, versus 20.6 in August 2026.
Sample. In the monthly time series plotted above, there are a total of 303 data points. The time span covered by the series extends from July 2001 to September 2026.
History. Check out a few summary statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 6.4; it recorded its highest level of 39.0 in April 2004; it hit a trough of -80.0 in April 2020.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 15.6000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 20.6000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 7.60000 |
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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 New York |
| Source type | Central bank |
| Data licence | Free use subject to conditions |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
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