Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: General business activity: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - 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 unadjusted diffusion index for general business activity (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 25.0 in September 2025, compared to 0.0 in August.
Sample. This monthly series has a total of 689 data points. The time range covered by the series is from May 1968 to September 2025.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index had a mean value of 8.9; it reached its maximum of 67.0 in March 1973; it hit a minimum of -76.0 in December 1974.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 6.7 |
| 2025-08-31 | 0.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 25.0 |
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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 | No |
| 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) |
Series in the same data set
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