Residential Construction Spending Continues to Decline. Is That a Good Thing?

Total construction spending fell for a fourth straight month in February to the slowest pace since November 2002, according to New Construction Spending data released by the Commerce Department today.

Overall construction spending, which includes public and private outlays, fell 1.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of $846.2 billion. This follows a revised for the worse 1.4 percent decline in January, originally reported as a 0.6 percent drop.