Skip to footer

Construction spending improves. Slowly.

On a month-to-month basis, total residential spending increased a slight 0.68 percent from February and rose 7.42 percent above the level seen in March 2011 while remaining a whopping 63.91 percent below the peak level seen in 2006.

|
SoldAtTheTop
This chart shows the yearly change in the value of private residential construction put into place since 2004. Since the housing market bottomed out in 2009, new home prices have been slow to recover.

Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released their latest read of construction spending showing a slight improvement from last month at near-cycle low levels of spending in March for residential construction while also indicating an improvement for total non-residential spending.

On a month-to-month basis, total residential spending increased a slight 0.68% from February and rose 7.42% above the level seen in March 2011 while remaining a whopping 63.91% below the peak level seen in 2006.

Single family construction spending jumped 3.81% since February rising 10.35% since March 2011 but remained a whopping 75.15% below it's peak in 2006.
Non-residential construction spending rose 0.74% since February and climbed 15.16% above the level seen in March 2011 but remained a whopping 32.49% below the peak level reached in October 2008.

The following charts (click for larger dynamic versions) show private residential construction spending, private residential single family construction spending and private non-residential construction spending broken out and plotted since 1993 along with the year-over-year, month-to-month and peak percent change to each since 1994 and 2000 – 2005.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Construction spending improves. Slowly.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Paper-Economy/2012/0501/Construction-spending-improves.-Slowly.
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe