Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Wages: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - Richmond FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about manufacturers based in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for wages (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 11.0 in September 2025, compared to 20.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 259 records in the monthly series displayed in the figure above. The time range covered by the series goes from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Check out a few simple statistics calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index reached its highest level of 49.0 in August 2021; it recorded a minimum of -11.0 in February 2008; it had an average value of 14.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 13.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 20.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 11.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did wages 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 Richmond |
| 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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