In July, construction spending went down because companies and the government in the U.S. slowed down projects all over the country because interest rates stayed high.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that spending on building projects dropped 0.3% in July to $2.16 trillion.
What was expected was not met by the number. Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal polled economists and found that they thought building spending would go down 0.1% in July.
The amount of money that the government and private companies spend on projects like roads and homes is shown by construction spending. The economy is doing better when the U.S. spends more on building things.
The government changed the number of dollars spent on building in June from a 0.3% drop to a flat number.
Spending on building things has gone up 6.7% in the last year.
For residential real estate, private residential construction fell 0.4% in July. Single-family construction fell 1.9%, while multi-family construction stayed the same.
Spending on building public homes went down by 2.6%.
