Economy

Sandwiched between the Texas Resolution Trust Corporation collapse of the 1980s and the Great Recession of the 2000s, Brian Robinson managed to carve out a name for himself in business—a name which still flourishes today as the founder of RDI Construction LLC and owner of a succe...

Tariffs. Inflation. Bear markets. Recession? These scary economic terms have dominated headlines lately, and every construction executive is understandably concerned about the future of their business. According to Forbes, the scale of proposed tariffs has prompted economic team...

On the surface, accounting feels fairly simple: Add up the revenue, subtract the expenses and report where all the dollars are going. Today’s construction industry, however, is anything but simple, and it demands the ability to take a deeper dive into the immediate details while ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1—National nonresidential construction spending decreased 0.1% in June, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data published by the U.S. Census Bureau. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, nonresidential spending totaled $1.241 tri...

Contractors today face a number of challenges: residual effects of ongoing inflation and elevated cost of capital due to a higher interest rate environment; the impact of tariffs driving up the cost of materials; and a tight labor market making it challenging to hire skilled work...

What We Learned in July Construction spending has been declining for several months, yet industrywide employment continues to grow, backlog increased in June and ABC members remain relatively confident about the future. Despite that optimism, the industry faces many headwinds in...

In the latest Construction Economic Update and Forecast webinar, expert economist Anirban Basu painted optimism over the current and future state of the construction economy under the effect of the Trump administration trade tariffs. The One Big Beautiful Bill is seemingly a posi...

WASHINGTON, July 16—Construction input prices increased 0.2% in June compared to the previous month, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index data. Nonresidential construction input prices increased 0.3%...

WASHINGTON, July 1—National nonresidential construction spending decreased 0.2% in May, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data published by the U.S. Census Bureau. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, nonresidential spending totaled $1.237 tril...

What We Learned in June: Some Signs of Waning Momentum Construction-specific economic data have started to flash a few signs of potential weakness. Both backlog and nonresidential construction spending declined for the month, and while nonresidential employment continues to grow...