The U.S. Census Bureau’s construction report dated April 3, 2017 announced a revision window reaching back to January 2015. The notice covered both unadjusted and seasonally adjusted data and referred to normal revisions in the May 2017 press release. The April report itself covered February construction spending. [pr201702]
That announcement followed a change in how Census packaged the report. Its March 1 release said the Excel file no longer included the narrative text. The tables retained their layout and format, but some explanatory notes had moved into the text. Census identified the PDF as the version containing both the complete text and table. [pr201701]
The distinction matters for reading the revision notice alongside the figures: the spreadsheet was no longer the complete report. Separately, the April explanatory notes described current-month estimates as preliminary and subject to later updates as more data arrived. The announced January 2015 reach specified a longer revision window; it did not establish a new statistical method or demonstrate that those future revisions had occurred. [pr201701][pr201702]
This retrospective uses official representations retrieved in October 2026, not authenticated 2017 snapshots. Exact historical wording, revision status and availability at the April 3 cutoff remain unconfirmed. Both documents originate with Census and provide complementary evidence, not independent corroboration. [pr201701][pr201702]
Source documents
- Monthly Construction Spending, February 2017https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/pr201702.pdf
- Monthly Construction Spending, January 2017https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/pr201701.pdf