The one-year anniversary of the federal economic stimulus program came and went last month, and while the U.S. construction industry has performed miserably during that time, apparently, things could have been much worse.

“The stimulus is one of the very few bright spots the construction industry experienced last year and is one of the few hopes keeping it going in 2010,” said Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America. “The stimulus is saving construction jobs, driving demand for new equipment and delivering better and more efficient infrastructure for our economy.”

Stimulus funded infrastructure projects under the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) “are saving and creating more direct construction jobs than initially estimated,” according to an analysis of federal data released Feb. 16 by the AGC. The analysis also found that more contractors are likely to perform stimulus funded work this year as work starts on many of the non-transportation projects funded in the initial package.

AFL-CIO Building Trades Department President Mark Ayers was also upbeat regarding the stimulus.

“As the ARRA funds have worked their way through the economy over the past year, the economic free-fall that defined our nation one year ago today has abate,” Ayers said in a Feb. 17 statement. “In fact, the Council of Economic Advisors has found that the ARRA has had a positive impact on our nation’s GDP. Recent upticks in GDP growth are heartening for the U.S. construction industry, which is struggling with unprecedented unemployment that has now reached 25% nationwide, a number that would have certainly been greater had no action been taken.”

Simonson noted that a new federal report shows the $20.6 billion dollars worth of stimulus highway projects initiated over the past twelve months have saved or created nearly 280,000 direct construction jobs. That amounts to 15,000 jobs per billion dollars invested, well above pre-stimulus estimates that every billion invested in infrastructure projects would create 9,700 direct construction jobs.

The economist added that heavy and civil engineering construction employment was stable in January even as total construction employment declined by 75,000. Meanwhile, highway and road construction was one of the only areas to see an increase in spending last year even as total construction spending fell by $100 billion. The two figures are a clear sign the stimulus is having a significant, and stabilizing, impact on the industry, Simonson said.

“The stimulus will keep a bad situation from deteriorating further,” Simonson said. “That may not make for great headlines, but it is welcome news for construction workers anxious to continue receiving paychecks.”

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and other top administration officials were touring the country on the one-year anniversary of the stimulus, pointing out that there have been jobs created by the stimulus – while trying to change constituents’ minds, egged on by GOP opposition, that the law has done nothing.

White House National Economic Council official Jason Furman, in a subsequent conference call, said only one-fifth of the stimulus law’s planned construction project spending has occurred so far.

Jared Bernstein, Biden’s top economic aide, said in the second year of the stimulus, “project-based spending goes from $3 billion a month to $7 billion a month.”

(Press Associates contributed).