by Calculated Risk June 3, 2024, 10:18 AM
From the Census Bureau report Overall construction spending decreased.
Construction spending in April 2024 is estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2.099 trillion, That’s 0.1% lower than the revised forecast in March. $2,101.5 billion. The April figure is 10.0% (±1.5%) above the April 2023 estimate of $1,907.8 billion.
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Private and public spending falls:
Spending on private construction rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.6119 trillion, 0.1 percent below the revised March estimate of $1.6133 trillion.
The seasonally adjusted estimated annual rate of public construction spending in April was $487.1 billion, 0.2 percent lower than the revised March estimate of $488.2 billion.
Click on the graph to enlarge the image.
This chart shows private residential and nonresidential construction spending and public spending since 1993. Note: Nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
Housing (red) spending is 8.2% lower than its recent 2022 peak.
Nonresidential (blue) spending is 1.0% below its peak two months ago.
Public construction spending is 0.2% below last month’s peak.
The second chart shows the year-over-year change in construction spending.
Compared to the previous year, Private housing construction spending increased 8.0%Non-residential spending increased 8.3% year-on-year. Public spending increased 16.8% year-on-year.
That was below the consensus forecast of a 0.2% increase in spending, but total construction spending was revised upwards over the past two months.
This is probably just the beginning of weakness in private nonresidential construction.
