A Paragraph to Ponder

From the New York Times yesterday - Feeble Construction Hiring Is a Stubborn Drag on Growth (Link):

"As a result, construction continues to be a drag on economic growth as well as employment. Before the crisis, construction — both residential and nonresidential — accounted for 9.4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the highest proportion in nearly 30 years. It plunged to half that level in 2011, and has now recovered only to 6 percent. It was never that low before the Great Recession, at least since 1947, when the figures began to be calculated.
      

With construction employment remaining low, and with a lot of government infrastructure work needing to be done, including repairing decaying bridges and building new schools, there would seem to be an obvious match that could get needed projects done for less than it would have cost a few years ago. Such work would also lift the economy by putting unemployed people to work. But politically, that seems to be impossible in the current atmosphere.

      

As a result, there is no indication that the construction industry will stop being a drag on growth anytime soon."