WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- Construction spending dropped in January from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $883.3 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Friday.
Total construction spending in December was revised to $902.6 billion, the bureau said. That put the month-to-month decline at 2.1 percent.
Spending in January came to 7.1 percent above spending in January 2011, when $824.7 billion was spent on construction projects on a seasonally adjusted annual basis.
For January, spending on private-sector projects totaled $614.2 billion with $304.6 billion spent on residential projects and $309.7 billion spent on non-residential projects.
Spending on residential projects was nearly unchanged from December while spending on private commercial projects fell 5.1 percent from December.
The estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending in December was $269 billion, off 1 percent from the revised December estimate of $271.7 billion, the Census Bureau said.
Educational construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $63.7 billion, down 3.5 percent from December while highway construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $79.1 billion, up 0.9 percent from December.
