Construction spending saw an unexpected—albeit slight—uptick in January, according to monthly data released by the Census Bureau [1].
The government’s latest report [2] shows spending on all construction projects was up 0.1 percent from December, coming to an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of $943.1 billion. That figure is 9.3 percent ahead of January 2013’s estimate of $863.1 billion.
Economists polled by Reuters [3] had expected a 0.5 percent decline in spending to follow December’s originally reported 0.1 percent improvement.
Private construction spending led the way, gaining 0.5 percent month-over-month to an annual adjusted rate of $670.8 billion. Spending on private homebuilding projects was at a rate of $359.9 billion, 1.1 percent above December’s revised estimate.
Breaking down the numbers, spending on new single-family construction was at a rate of $186.0 billion, up 2.3 percent month-over-month, while multifamily spending came to $36.3 billion, up just 1.0 percent.
On the public side, spending was down 0.8 percent to an adjusted rate of $272.3 billion, with residential projects contributing about $4.5 billion (down 13.4 percent compared to December).