Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: General business activity: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about manufacturers based in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 23.2 in September 2025, compared to -0.3 in August.
Sample. The monthly time series plotted above has 689 observations overall. The series covers the time range extending from May 1968 to September 2025.
History. Check out a few summary statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 8.8; it peaked at 58.5 in March 1973; it hit a trough of -60.5 in April 2020.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 15.9 |
| 2025-08-31 | -0.3 |
| 2025-09-30 | 23.2 |
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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 Philadelphia |
| 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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