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 collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for wages (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 15.0 in September 2026, compared to 25.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 353 observations overall in the monthly series presented in the graph above. The time span covered by the series is from May 1997 to September 2026.
History. Have a look at some simple statistics calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index recorded a maximum of 49.0 in August 2021; it hit a minimum of -14.0 in February 2009; it had a mean value of 14.6.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 26.0000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 25.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 15.0000 |
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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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