ARRA Benefits One-Quarter of Firms

Since the federal government's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was enacted in 2009, nearly one quarter (24 percent) of the firms on our survey panel reported that they have received revenue from projects funded through the program. One year ago, only 21.8 percent of firms had received ARRA stimulus funding revenue, according to Jennifer Riskus, AIA Economics Research Manager.

This year, firms in the South (28 percent) were slightly more likely to report ARRA projects, as were large firms with annual billings of $1 million or more (34 percent). However, four in 10 firms that have received revenue from ARRA projects reported that these projects accounted for less than 5 percent of their firm billings in 2009 and 2010.

An additional 33 percent said that these projects have accounted for 5 to 10 percent of their billings, but just 7 percent of firms reported that ARRA projects account for 25 percent or more of their billings.

For firms that are already receiving ARRA revenue, these federal stimulus projects have accounted for slightly less than 10 percent of project billings over the past two years. Since only about a quarter of firms received any revenue from ARRA-funded projects, about 2.5 percent of project billings across the entire profession over the past two years are estimated to have come from these projects.

As could be expected given the nature of the program, firms have found that the most common project types that received revenue under the federal stimulus program were government buildings?EUR??,,????'?????<

- Courtesy of AIA