Even with the disruption of building activity totals by the summer hurricanes, construction spending was up 0.3 percent in September – a larger improvement than was expected. However, the Wells Fargo Economics Group stated that "was largely due to a downward revision to the prior month's data," which was adjusted from 0.5 percent to 0.1 percent.

Spending on public projects performed much better than the total; expanding 2.6 percent, with some credit going to those same storms. Federal spending pitched in with a 3.4 percent gain, only the second advance in six months. State and local spending improved 2.5 percent. Overall though, public outlays for the year are still below last year's numbers.

Private sector projects saw a 0.4 percent drop in spending in September, but the single-family housing category (+0.2 percent) and the multi-family housing category (+0.6) defied the downward move. Spending on non-residential projects dropped 0.8 percent.