To provide monthly estimates of the total dollar value of construction work done in the United States (including 50 states and the District of Columbia). The population of interest includes all private residential construction and improvements, nonresidential construction, and public construction.
Construction work done each month on new structures or improvements to existing structures for private and public sectors (in 50 states and the District of Columbia).
Title 13, United States Code, Sections 131 and 182 authorizes the Census Bureau to conduct this collection and to request your voluntary assistance. By Section 9 of Title 13, United States Code, your report is confidential. It may be seen only by persons sworn to uphold the confidentiality of Census Bureau information, and may be used only for statistical purposes. The law also provides that copies of your report retained in your files are immune from legal process.
The key statistics produced for Construction Spending are monthly estimates of the total dollar value of construction work done in the U.S. The survey covers construction work done each month on new structures or improvements to existing structures for private and public sectors (in 50 states and the District of Columbia). Data are shown by type of construction as seasonally adjusted annual rates and in unadjusted dollars.
Data on construction spending are available on a monthly and annual basis going back to 1993.
Statistics for construction are available at the U.S. level monthly, and by division, region, and state annually for selected categories. Private manufacturing is availalable monthly at the region and division level.
Construction spending estimates include the cost of labor and materials, architectural and engineering work, overhead, interest and taxes paid during construction, and contractor’s profits.
Construction work done each month on new structures or improvements to existing structures for private and public sectors (in 50 states and the District of Columbia).
Value of Construction Put in Place press releases are issued on the first working day of each month, 2 months after the reference month. Data are shown by type of construction in seasonally adjusted annual rate and unadjusted dollars.
Preliminary value-in-place (VIP) estimates of the total dollar value of construction work done in the U.S. by private or public sector and type of construction are available in the Construction Spending press release according to the release schedule.
For value-in-place estimates of the total dollar value of construction work done, two months of data are revised along with the release of each month's preliminary estimates. An analysis of the VIP revisions for estimates is updated with the release of each year's preliminary May data. With the release of preliminary May data on the Construction Spending release, seasonally adjusted annual rates for the previous 88 months are also revised to reflect updated seasonal factors. Not seasonally adjusted monthly estimates of total construction spending by owner and type of construction category are also revised to reflect late reports and revised or new estimates from outside data sources.
Preliminary annual estimates are published with the release of December preliminary data for the following year. Annual estimates of value-in-place estimates for the most recent two years are finalized with the release of data for May of the following year. A few estimates that undergo special processing during annual revisions are addressed below.
Periodically construction spending estimates for private manufacturing are benchmarked to the Census Bureau’s Annual Capital Expenditures Survey (ACES) detailed structures data. This was done for data in 1992, 1994, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2012, and 2017. A carry forward factor is applied to estimates in between ACES benchmark years.
The Federal, Utilities, and Railroad estimates are benchmarked or derived from outside sources. Some of these sources are unable to provide estimates until a year or two after the reference period. Once the source data is available the series are revised during the following annual revision period.
In the event of an unplanned data revision, revised statistics may be made available under “Latest Construction Spending Data.” Internal Census Bureau policies are followed for notifying sponsors and primary stakeholders.