The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has introduced a new online tool, the Price and Inflation Expectations Survey (PIES) data explorer. This platform gives users access to a decade’s worth of firm-level expectations data, including information from both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing businesses in Delaware, southern New Jersey, and eastern and central Pennsylvania.
Alongside the launch of the data explorer, the Philadelphia Fed released its first quarterly report summarizing survey results for the fourth quarter of 2025. The PIES survey collects forecasts from business leaders on changes in their product prices, employee compensation, and U.S. inflation rates. Respondents also share observed price changes over the past year.
“PIES provides one of the longest time series of firms’ own price and U.S. inflation expectations,” according to the release. The questions used in PIES were previously included as special topics in other business outlook surveys by the Philadelphia Fed since 2015 but are now available through a centralized platform.
The new tool allows users to filter results by sector or view combined data for all firms to gain broader insights into business expectations.
Key findings from the fourth quarter 2025 survey include:
– Firms anticipate their own prices will rise by an average of 2.6 percent from Q4 2025 through Q4 2026, down from last quarter’s forecast of 3.3 percent.
– Businesses reported an average price increase of 3.0 percent for Q4 2025.
– Compensation costs per employee are expected to rise by 3.3 percent over the next year, consistent with previous projections.
– The median expectation for U.S. inflation over the next four quarters declined to 3.0 percent from last quarter’s 3.3 percent—marking its lowest level in a year.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia is one of twelve regional Reserve Banks that make up part of the Federal Reserve System along with the Board of Governors in Washington, DC.
