Construction appears to have stabilized

Residential construction spending has firmed somewhat over the past year, lending credence to the argument that the housing market has bottomed, but it is such a tiny (2.4%) part of the economy now that what happens there is almost irrelevant to the economy's growth outlook. Nonresidential construction, somewhat surprisingly, has firmed in recent months, but I don't see a reason for this strength to continue in any meaningful fashion. The best that can be said about construction at this juncture is that it is not collapsing.