Dive Brief:

• Winter got the blame for U.S. Census Bureau figures, out Monday, that showed nonresidential construction went down from December to January, receding by 0.2% or 0.3% depending on which figures were reported.
• Residential construction, on the other hand, eked out a 0.1% gain, with the biggest tug coming from a 2.3% rise in single-family home building  and that was enough to make a paper-thin 0.1% increase in total construction spending at a seasonally adjusted $943.1 billion.
• Associated Builders and Contractors said that with winter pressing on into March, the first quarter of the year likely will be disappointing for nonresidential construction – but Anirban Basu, ABC's chief economist, said 2014 still should turn out to be positive.

Dive Insight:

The variance in the nonresidential decline between ABC and the Associated Press stems from what is included in the numbers. ABC uses total nonresidential construction, including local, state and federal government. That was down 0.34%. The AP used only private-sector nonresidential, which was down 0.2%.