Public agencies have been reporting for more than a year that they are paying less for school buildings and other facilities than they had been. But few governments seem to have stepped up their construction programs to take advantage of the price breaks.

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Conflicting data, media reports and politicians' assertions have spread a great deal of confusion about the stimulus legislation's impact, or lack of it, on job creation in construction. The reality is that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) - the "stimulus bill" - has enabled contractors to hire some workers and keep paying others who would have been laid off. But ARRA's reporting requirements, which were supposed to add transparency, have actually added to the confusion.

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Two indicators released in mid-December suggest construction has started to thaw in a few parts of the country. On December 17, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that although seasonally adjusted personal earnings in construction shrank nationally in the third quarter, construction earnings were positive in North Dakota, Alaska and New Hampshire and were unchanged in New Jersey.

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The employment report that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on December 4 contains tentative good news. The unemployment rate fell from 10.2 percent in October to 10 percent in November, seasonally adjusted. Job losses fell to 11,000, the lowest monthly decline since the recession began in December 2007.

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The return to standard time at the beginning of November brings this old mnemonic to mind. It also seems to apply, in another sense, to the latest construction spending data.

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-the stimulus legislation that President Obama signed in February-contained 61 separate programs with money for construction, by AGC's count, with a wide range of administering agencies, formulas and rules. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of variation in how quickly the agencies have awarded the money. Here are some glimpses I saw in a week of presentations in early October.

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The rate of decline in overall employment is gradually slowing. First-time unemployment claims dropped in mid-September, suggesting that September employment losses will shrink again, as they did in August.

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"Reports from the 12 Federal Reserve Districts indicate that economic activity continued to stabilize in July and August," the Fed reported on September 9 in the latest Beige Book, a summary of informal soundings of business conditions. The districts are referred to by the name of their headquarters city. "Relative to the last report, Dallas indicated that economic activity had firmed, while Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Richmond, and San Francisco mentioned signs of improvement. Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and New York generally described economic activity as stable or showing signs of stabilization; St. Louis remarked that the pace of decline appeared to be moderating. Most Districts noted that the outlook for economic activity among their business contacts remained cautiously positive."

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AGC members continue to report that developers are unable to get loans for commercial real-estate (CRE) projects, and many members have had their own lines of credit tightened or canceled. These observations match the latest survey of senior loan officers by the Federal Reserve, which the Fed summarized on August 17.

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The amount of construction work funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, popularly called the stimulus legislation) varies greatly by state and program. Two weeks ago, I spoke on successive days to state transportation officials in Colorado, New Mexico and Maine. They said they had awarded contracts covering 69%, 80% and 100% of their respective DOT allocations. But, of course, those percentages don't necessarily correspond to amounts paid out or even work started. Other states are far behind those three in even holding bid-letting days to pick contractors.

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