The U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that construction spending during June 2005 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about $1.09 trillion, 0.3 percent below the revised May estimate and 7.9 percent above the June 2004 estimate.
During the first six months of this year, construction spending amounted to about $514.8 billion, 9.3 percent above the $471 billion reported for the same period in 2004.
Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about $843.8 billion, 0.2 percent below the revised May estimate of $845.6 billion. Private residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about $602.4 billion in June, 0.4 percent below the revised May estimate of about $604.8 billion and up 9.1 percent from June 2004.
More detailed data is available online at http://www.census.gov/constructionspending. In interpreting changes in the statistics in this release, note that month-to-month changes in seasonally adjusted statistics often show movements that may be irregular. The Census Bureau reports that it may take two months to establish an underlying trend for total construction and as long as eight months for specific categories of construction.
The statistics are estimated from several sources and surveys and are subject to sampling variability as well as non-sampling error including bias and variance from response, non-reporting, and under-coverage. Statistics for the current month are preliminary estimates subject to revision in following months as additional data become available, according to the Census Bureau. The average absolute percent changes from preliminary estimate to first revision for the major seasonally adjusted components are as follows: Total construction, 0.8 percent; and private construction, 0.7 percent.
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