The U.S. Department of Commerce said construction spending during March 2011 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $768.9 billion, 1.4 percent above the revised February estimate of $758.6 billion. The March figure is 6.7 percent below the March 2010 estimate of $824 billion. During the first 3 months of this year, construction spending amounted to $161.2 billion, 7.8 percent below the $174.8 billion for the same period in 2010.
Private construction
Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $476.1 billion, 2.2 percent above the revised February estimate of $466 billion. Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $229.1 billion in March, 2.6 percent above the revised February estimate of $223.2 billion. Private nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $247 billion in March, 1.8 percent above the revised February estimate of $242.7 billion. A 2.4 percent increase in private residential construction to $237.8 billion was a major factor for the increase.
Public construction
In March, the Department of Commerce said estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $292.8 billion, 0.1 percent above the revised February estimate of $292.6 billion. Educational construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $68.5 billion, 0.5 percent above the revised February estimate of $68.1 billion. Highway construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $82.9 billion, 0.6 percent above the revised February estimate of $82.4 billion.
Value Of New Construction Put In Place — March 2011
Value of Construction Put-in-Place ($ billions, seasonally adjusted annual rate)
1-Preliminary; 2-Revised
Note: The U.S. Census department changed its construction categories beginning with its May 2003 statistics. With the changes in the project classifications, data now presented are not directly comparable with those data previously published in the regular-format press releases and tables. Direct comparisons can only be made at the total, total private, total state and local, total federal, and total public levels for annual and not seasonally adjusted monthly data. For more information, check out http://www.census.gov/const/www/c30index.html.