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 a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -8.7 in September 2025, compared to 11.9 in the previous month.
Sample. In this montly time series, there are a total of 291 observations. The span of time covered by the series is from July 2001 to September 2025.
History. Check out a few statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached a trough of -79.9 in April 2020; it recorded a maximum of 39.0 in April 2004; it averaged 6.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 5.5 |
| 2025-08-31 | 11.9 |
| 2025-09-30 | -8.7 |
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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 | Yes |
| Rescaling | None |
| Frequency | Montly |
| 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.