Public, Private Construction Spending Declined in February

Construction spending during February was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $808.9 billion, 1.1 percent below the revised January estimate of $818.1 billion.  The estimate was released Monday by the Census Bureau which at the same time revised the January spending figure down from an original estimate of $827.0 billion.   February spending was 5.8 percent above the estimate for February 2011 of $764.2 billion.  So far in 2012 construction spending has totaled $111.3 billion, 7.4 percent higher than one year earlier.

Private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $527.3 billion compared to $531.7 billion in January and $478.7 billion in February 2011, an increase of 10.2 percent.  Private residential construction was at an annual rate of $253.5 billion, virtually unchanged from January but 4.6 percent higher than the $242,369 billion rate in February 2011.  Private residential construction spending in the first two months of the year totaled $33.4 Billion.

Total public construction dollars were spent at a rate of $281.6 billion, a decrease of 1.7 percent from January and 1.4 percent from one year earlier.  Public residential construction for new single family houses was at a rate of $111.5 billion compared to $113.2 billion in January and $107.0 billion in February 2011 for changes of -1.5 percent and 4.2 percent respectively.  Public multi-family construction was at a rate of $17.2 billion compared to 16.9 billion in January and was 25.7 percent higher than one year earlier when spending was estimated at $13.7 billion