Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey
Nearly three decades of manufacturers' own voices - every quarter's findings, every report, and the story the data tells.
NAM Data & Research
The Voice of the Shop Floor, Every Quarter Since 1997
The NAM Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey is the longest-running quarterly measure of how manufacturers in America see their own businesses — their outlook, their growth plans and the challenges in their way.
Launched in the fourth quarter of 1997, the survey has now run for more than 115 consecutive quarters. Each quarter, the NAM asks manufacturers of every size — members and nonmembers, from family-owned small shops to the largest global companies — how they feel about their company’s outlook and what they expect for sales, production, hiring, wages, prices and capital investment over the year ahead.
Because the same core questions have been asked the same way for nearly three decades, the survey is a uniquely reliable record of the manufacturing economy: it tracked the industry through the dot-com downturn, the Great Recession, the record optimism that followed tax and regulatory reform in 2018, the COVID-19 shock and recovery, and manufacturers’ response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1).
The results do real work. The NAM releases the findings publicly every quarter, and they are cited in congressional testimony, regulatory comments and news coverage across the country — putting manufacturers’ own voices in front of the policymakers whose decisions shape the industry.
Source: NAM Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, Q4 1997–present.
The survey through history
Nearly Three Decades on the Record
Explore every quarter
Read the Findings, Quarter by Quarter
Every point on this chart is one quarter of the survey. Select a highlighted point — or pick a quarter below — to read that quarter’s findings and download the full report.
Highlighted quarters have a published writeup — click one to read it. Shaded bands mark U.S. recessions.
Source: NAM Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey (quarterly; conducted by the NAM among member and nonmember manufacturers of all sizes). Outlook Index: 50 + 10 × standardized share of respondents positive about their own company’s outlook (1997–present sample). Recessions as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Quarterly writeups available from 2016; earlier quarters are charted from the survey’s historical data.
Go Deeper into the Data
Chart sentiment by firm size, explore expectations for sales, hiring and investment, and see full response breakdowns for any question — all in the interactive data explorer.
