Rising prices of construction materials make increased infrastructure effort even more necessary: Real public spending on transportation and water infrastructure, using GDP deflators and infrastructure-specific deflators, 1979–2014

Year Based on infrastructure-specific
price indexes
Based on the GDP price index
1979 100 100
1980 103.339 105.549
1981 100.385 105.178
1982 94.6026 99.373
1983 96.6386 100.563
1984 101.002 103.517
1985 108.077 109.763
1986 113.959 116.452
1987 117.404 121.949
1988 121.547 126.183
1989 124.173 128.474
1990 127.409 132.353
1991 131.255 135.955
1992 133.713 138.73
1993 134.84 140.088
1994 139.74 145.922
1995 141.688 149.892
1996 141.803 151.91
1997 144.657 156.458
1998 147.996 161.516
1999 152.759 169.787
2000 156.459 177.956
2001 163.185 188.363
2002 169.391 197.078
2003 171.622 202.036
2004 167.078 200.862
2005 162.191 203.724
2006 161.078 210.331
2007 159.949 218.562
2008 159.368 226.885
2009 164.618 235.786
2010 164.944 238.211
2011 158.806 232.928
2012 154.848 229.557
2013 154.627 229.44
2014 156.368 232.067

Note: Infrastructure-specific deflator uses prices of materials and other inputs used to build, operate, and maintain transportation and water infrastructure.

Source: Author’s analysis of data from CBO 2015

View the underlying data on epi.org.