Construction Spending Slips in July
WASHINGTON (TheStreet) -- Construction spending in July slipped compared with the previous month, driven by a drop-off in commercial and government building.
That might seem counterintuitive, what with all the stimulus package and infrastructure-improvement projects on the table. And indeed it was counterintuitive to economists. July's total construction spending fell to $958 billion, 0.2% below the revised June estimate of $959.5 billion. Experts were expecting a flat July compared with the prior month.
On the residential side, however, the figures gave more credence to the hoped-for recovery in the housing market. Construction of homes and apartments increased 2.3% to $254.2 billion in July, the sharpest rise since September 2008.
Spending on public building projects fell 0.7% to $327.6 billion, while nonresidential construction declined 1% to $703.8 billion.
Because monthly estimates and revisions to those estimates are highly volatile, market observers looked skeptically on monthly construction spending readings, preferring to look at three-month trends.
-- Written by Scott Eden in New York
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Scott Eden has covered business -- both large and small -- for more than a decade. Prior to joining TheStreet.com, he worked as a features reporter for Dealmaker and Trader Monthly magazines. Before that, he wrote for the Chicago Reader, that city's weekly paper. Early in his career, he was a staff reporter at the Dow Jones News Service. His reporting has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Men's Journal, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, and the Believer magazine, among other publications. He's also the author of Touchdown Jesus (Simon & Schuster, 2005), a nonfiction book about Notre Dame football fans and the business and politics of big-time college sports. He has degrees from Notre Dame and Washington University in St. Louis.
