Construction spending eased slightly in June, but the Census Bureau said today that it is still running substantially ahead of spending in the first six months of 2015. Spending in June was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.13 trillion compared to $1.40 trillion in May, a drop of 0.6 percent.  The June figure is 0.3 percent higher than the June 2015 estimate.  Spending for all construction in 2016 through the end of June has totaled $539.8 billion, 6.2 percent more than spending in the same period the previous year.

Privately funded construction for all purposes was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $851.1 billion in June, also a decrease of 0.6 percent from May.  It remained 2.5 percent ahead of private spending a year earlier.  Year-to-date spending at the end of June was $409.4 billion, an increase of 7.8 percent from 2015.

Privately funded residential construction expenditures were at an annual rate of $445.8 billion, unchanged from May.  Single family construction dipped by 0.4 percent to $239.7 billion and multi-family construction fell by 1.5 percent.  Residential expenditures remained 4.8 percent higher than in June 2015 and multi-family gained 16.4 percent.

On an unadjusted basis, residential spending in June totaled $41.16 billion compared to $39.06 billion in May.  There was $21.34 billion spent on single-family units and $5.20 billion on multi-family housing compared to $20.38 billion and $5.10 billion respectively the previous month.  Year to date spending rose 7.7 percent for all residential construction, 10.6 percent for single family, and 21.9 percent for multi-family building.

Publicly funded construction was at an annual rate of $282.51 billion in June down by 0.6 percent for the month and 6.0 percent lower year-over-year.  Residential spending was down 6.0 percent for the month and was 11.8 percent below the previous June at a rate of $5.74 billion.