Data Analysis

Construction spending ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,203.1 billion in August 2026, 0.9 percent above July, 1.7 percent below August 2025, and 3.1 percent behind last year across the first eight months.

The Census Bureau published its August value of construction put in place estimates on October 1, 2026. Only two of the seven categories in the release moved by more than their own margin of error.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported on October 1, 2026 that construction spending in August 2026 ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,203.1 billion, 0.9 percent (plus or minus 1.0 percent) above the revised July estimate of $2,184.5 billion and 1.7 percent (plus or minus 1.5 percent) below the August 2025 figure of $2,242.0 billion. Private residential construction was at a $882.3 billion annual rate, up 1.1 percent (plus or minus 1.3 percent) on the month. Across the first eight months of 2026, construction spending totaled $1,450.4 billion, 3.1 percent (plus or minus 1.0 percent) below the $1,496.6 billion recorded over the same stretch of 2025.

That last figure is the one that carries the year. It is the only comparison in the release whose confidence interval sits well clear of zero in the negative direction, and it describes actual money spent rather than an annualized rate.

How much did construction spending change in August 2026?

By the headline number, spending rose 0.9 percent from July. By the rule the Census Bureau prints in the same document, that increase cannot be separated from no change at all.

The release states the rule plainly. Each percent change comes with a 90 percent confidence interval that accounts for sampling variability, and in the Census Bureau's own words, "If a range does not contain zero, the change is statistically significant. If it does contain zero, the change is not statistically significant; that is, it is uncertain whether there was an increase or decrease." A 0.9 percent gain with an interval of plus or minus 1.0 percent spans minus 0.1 percent to plus 1.9 percent. Zero sits inside it.

Applying that rule to every category in the August release is a short exercise, and this desk did it rather than relying on the figures as presented.

Which construction categories actually moved?

Two of seven cleared their own margin of error. Private construction overall rose 1.1 percent (plus or minus 0.5 percent) to a $1,655.3 billion annual rate, and private nonresidential construction rose 1.0 percent (plus or minus 0.5 percent) to $773.0 billion. Both intervals exclude zero.

The other five do not. Total construction at plus 0.9 percent (plus or minus 1.0), private residential at plus 1.1 percent (plus or minus 1.3), total public construction at plus 0.2 percent (plus or minus 2.0), public educational at plus 0.1 percent (plus or minus 1.5) and public highway and street construction at plus 0.1 percent (plus or minus 5.6) all carry intervals that straddle zero.

Private residential is the case worth pausing on. It posted the same 1.1 percent increase as private construction overall, and the two figures sit in the same paragraph of the release. One is statistically significant and one is not, and the difference has nothing to do with how much building happened. It comes from the width of the interval, 0.5 points on the broader private series against 1.3 points on residential. Housing is measured less precisely than the private construction aggregate that contains it.

Highway and street construction is the extreme version. A 0.1 percent change with an interval of plus or minus 5.6 percent tells a reader almost nothing about the month.

Why was the revision to July bigger than August's increase?

Every monthly construction release revises the months before it, and this one revised July upward by more than the amount August gained.

When July was first published on September 1, 2026, the Census Bureau's own historical table put total construction spending at a $2,157.6 billion annual rate. The table still carried that figure on the morning of October 1. Today's release puts revised July at $2,184.5 billion. That is an increase of $26.9 billion, or 1.25 percent, against an August gain of 0.9 percent.

The release also publishes a yardstick for judging that. The Census Bureau states that the average absolute percent change from preliminary estimate to first revision is 0.65 percent for total construction, 0.75 percent for private construction and 0.59 percent for public construction. July's total revision ran 1.9 times the stated average. Private residential went further, from $859.0 billion as first published to $872.7 billion revised, a 1.6 percent move and 2.1 times the average for private construction.

June moved too, from $2,167.7 billion to $2,187.4 billion. The practical effect is that July, first reported as a 0.47 percent decline from June, now reads as a 0.13 percent decline. The month did not change direction. The whole level shifted up by about one percent, which matters more for anyone reading the trend than the August print does.

Is construction spending down year over year?

Yes, and this is where the release is least ambiguous. August 2026 came in 1.7 percent (plus or minus 1.5 percent) below August 2025, an interval running from minus 3.2 to minus 0.2 percent that excludes zero. The eight-month comparison is 3.1 percent (plus or minus 1.0 percent) below 2025, a gap of $46.2 billion in actual spending.

Eleven of the twelve months since September 2025 have sat below the August 2025 level in the Census Bureau's seasonally adjusted series as it stands today. August 2026 is 1.9 percent below the September 2025 high of $2,245.8 billion and 1.6 percent above the April 2026 low of $2,168.2 billion.

What does this mean for Florida housing?

Not much directly, and the honest answer is worth more than a stretched one. The monthly construction spending release is national. It carries no state figures and no metro figures, and Florida is not named anywhere in it. The Census Bureau does publish a monthly subnational construction table, but as of October 1 it is labeled an experimental product, covers private manufacturing construction by region, and still showed July as its most recent period.

What the national series does set is the backdrop for supply. Residential construction spending running at an $882.3 billion annual rate, with an eight-month total across all construction 3.1 percent behind last year, describes a building sector that is not expanding into the slower resale market. For what is actually happening to prices, inventory and days on market in each Florida metro, the figures on the Florida housing tracker and the individual market pages carry state and local data, including Miami and Tampa.

Limitations

The August figures are preliminary and will be revised next month. The record above shows why that matters: July's first revision moved total spending by 1.25 percent, nearly double the Census Bureau's own stated average, and private residential by 1.6 percent.

Significance determinations in this article are this desk's arithmetic applied to the intervals the Census Bureau publishes, using the rule the release itself states. The Census Bureau does not label individual categories significant or not significant.

The release was read twice from the same document, census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/release.pdf, with the second read asking only for transcription. Both reads agreed on every figure quoted here. The two reads disagreed on whether the release prints year-over-year changes for individual categories, and one returned a category figure identical to the published year-to-date change, so no annual change is reported here for any category other than total construction and the eight-month total, which both reads returned identically with margins of error.

The preliminary July figures come from the Census Bureau's own historical table at census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/totsa.pdf, read at 11:05 a.m. ET on October 1, when that table had not yet rolled to August and still carried July as preliminary. The revised figures were confirmed against the same series on FRED, which updated to the August release at 10:18 a.m. ET and matches the Census release to the dollar.

Monthly figures are seasonally adjusted annual rates. The eight-month comparison is actual spending over January through August, not an annualized rate, so the two are not interchangeable.

Sources

U.S. Census Bureau, Monthly Construction Spending, August 2026, released October 1, 2026: census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/release.pdf

U.S. Census Bureau, Value of Construction Put in Place, seasonally adjusted annual rate historical table: census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/totsa.pdf

U.S. Census Bureau, Construction Spending, Monthly Subnational tables: census.gov/construction/c30/monthlysubnational.html

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED series TTLCONS, Total Construction Spending, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau: fred.stlouisfed.org/data/TTLCONS

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED series PRRESCONS, Total Private Construction Spending: Residential: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRRESCONS

Disclosure: Jon Brooks is a co-founder of Momentum Realty, a Florida real estate brokerage that owns and funds Florida Housing Intelligence. Momentum has a financial interest in Florida real estate transactions, including in markets named here. See our editorial standards.