Construction spending was essentially flat in May when compared to April.  The U.S. Census Bureau said on Monday that there were seasonally adjusted annualized expenditures of $1.23 trillion during the month on all types of construction.  The revised estimate for April was $1.23 billion as well, but that resulted from a revision of the original sharp decline in spending reported for March, 1.4 percent, to -0.7 percent.  On a year-over-year basis total spending was up 4.5 percent.

Analysts polled by Econoday had expected an increase of 0.5 percent.  Estimates from no change to a positive 0.9 percent.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, total spending in May was $103.16 billion compared to $99.506 in April. For the first five months of 2017 the Bureau estimates spending at $469.2 billion, up 6.1 percent from expenditures at the same point in 2016.

Private spending overall was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $943.2 billion, a -0.6 percent change from April's estimate of $949.3 billion, but up 6.2 percent compared to the previous May.  On a non-adjusted basis, private spending totaled $80.87 billion compared to $78.20 billion in April.  Year to date spending is 9.0 percent higher than a year earlier.

Private spending on residential construction fared little better than the overall numbers in May.  On a seasonally adjusted basis, expenditures were $509.62 billion, a decrease of 0.6 percent month-over-month from $512.34 billion.  Spending was substantially higher than last May, an increase of 11.2 percent. Most of the monthly decline was attributed to multi-family construction which fell by 3.3 percent (but remained 3.0 percent higher than in May 2016) while single-family construction fell by 0.3 percent.  It too remained strong compared to last year, up 7.9 percent.

Unadjusted residential spending totaled $44.28 billion during the month and is at $195.17 billion for the first five months of the year. In April, $42.77 billion was spent and the year-to-date number is 1.2 percent higher than last year.

Unadjusted spending on single family construction was $22.16 billion in May and on multi-family it was $5.2 billion.  The figures year-to-date for the two sectors were $98.30 billion and $25.69 billion, increases of 7.3 percent and 6.2 percent respectively from their numbers in 2016.

The seasonally adjusted rate of public sector spending was $286.90 billion in May, an increase of 2.1 percent from April but down 0.6 percent from May 2016.  Residential spending was at a rate of $6.26 billion, up 9.2 percent for the months but off by 7.2 percent on an annual basis.