Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released their December read of construction spending showing a continued slowing of the government’s tax-carrot fueled bounce in residential construction spending while indicating continued weakness to non-residential construction spending.Even with the governments tax-credit gimmick, residential construction spending is still 10.90% below the level seen last year and a whopping 61.50% below the peak set in March 2006.
Worse off though was private single family residential construction spending which declined 17.60% as compared to December 2008 and a truly grotesque 75.51% from the peak set in February 2006.
Non-residential construction spending, currently accounting for over half of all private construction spending, posted another significant year-over-year decline of 17.75%.
The following charts (click for larger versions) show private residential construction spending, private residential single family construction spending and private non-residential construction spending broken out and plotted since 1993 along with the year-over-year and peak percent change to each since 1994 and 2000 – 2005.
