WSP11629

• File Number: 8112.600
• Description: Arkansas White Red Basins Interagency Committee - AWRBIAC -- Reports
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 1/16/1952
• Title: Application Procedures for Economic Evaluation of Projects - Second Progress Report of the Work Group on Benefits and Costs - AWRBIAC
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Table 3.-Price projeotions for construction
oost items under high employment assumption 1/

COJllIlJ.odity Unit Actual Averages
or or 1949 1950 Long-term
index base projection
Construction Cost Index:
Composite Index 2/ 1939 = 100 219 234 191
E.N.R. Index 2f - do. 202.5 217.5 180
Machinery price s do. 1(4 170 148
Materials:
Cement do. 146 149 126
Stee 1 4/ cents per lb. 4.2 4.4 3.7
Copper -5/ do. 19 21 16
Aluminum 6/ do. 8 10 10
Coal 7/ - $ per sh. ton 8.63 8.70 9.00
Labor:
Building trades 8/ 1939 =,100 170.8 177.8 160
COJllIlJ.on 9/ do. 212.3 224.0 184.5

1/ furnished by the Office of Business Eoonomics, Department of
Commerce, for the Subcommittee on Benefits and Costs on the basis
of the general price levels used for the agricultural prioe projections.
2/ ThiB index includes a combination of wage and material costs.
It reflects a combination of about 18 representative cost indexeB
weighted by the relative importance of the major classes of construc-
tion, It is an implicit index computed by dividing the total estimate
of new oonstruction activity in current priceB by the total expressed
in 1939 prices. Since the total in 1939 prices is obtained by adding
the estim&tes for the separately deflated classeB of construction, the
composite index is the equivalent of a variably weighted index, reflect-
ing changes not only in the component cost series, but also in the
relative importance of the major classes of oonstruction.
3/Engineering News Record Construction Cost Index, adjusted so
1939 oonstruction costs equal 100.
4/ Composite, finished.
5/ Electrolytic, NY, domestic.
S!, Scrap, castings, NY.
'7/ Bituminous, mine run.
~/ Represents an index of union hourly wage rates in building
trades based on U. S. Department of Labor; long-term projection based
on trend of real wage rates, all~{ing for the impact of a lower con-
sumer's price index from current level s.
2f Engineering News Record Construction Wage Rate: Common Labor,
adjusted so 1939 wage rate equals 100.

Table 3 - Appendix I