Written by: Eric Gaus, Dodge Chief Economist, and Sarah Martin, Associate Director of Forecasting
With the U.S. Census Bureau continuing to face delays in releasing its construction spending data due to the government shutdown, Dodge Construction Network’s (Dodge) Economics team has developed independent estimates of what the Census likely would have reported in recent months. While the government has re-opened, Dodge is assuming that Census’ data releases will remain delayed in the interim.
As a trusted and long-standing resource in the industry, Dodge is well positioned to provide these estimates. Dodge supplies some of the inputs used in the Census’ own construction spending calculations and has collected detailed construction starts data for decades. Our data collection methodology is nearly identical to Census in the case of single-family homes, while our broader dataset is directly tied to individually tracked construction projects. We monitor their progress from their earliest stages of planning until shovels break ground, at which point they are officially labeled a “construction start”, a term originally coined by Dodge.
While our data reporting categories usually differ from Census, these estimates follow Census’ conventions to ensure consistency and clarity during this period without official federal data.
Total Construction Put-in-Place Spending
Dodge estimates that Census construction spending during February 2026 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,187.9 billion, -0.1 percent (±0.8 percent)* below Census’s preliminary January estimate of $2,190.4 billion. The February figure is 1.0 percent (±1.5 percent) above Census’s February 2025 estimate of $2,165.4billion.
Dodge maintains a digitized database of historical construction starts dating back to 1967 and provides forecasts for construction starts, spending, and building stock across more than 20 construction categories. Our commercial construction starts data serves as a primary input for the U.S. Census Bureau’s Construction Put-in-Place (spending) calculations.
For more monthly insights on construction activity across key sectors, explore our latest industry reports.