The report, "The U.S. Transportation Construction Industry Profile," released by the ARTBA Transportation Development Foundation, shows that the money invested this year in transportation construction industry employment and purchases will generate more than $380 billion in U.S. economic activity -- nearly 3% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product.

Alison Black, ARTBA senior economist and the report's author, found transportation construction supports more than 3 million American jobs -- half directly involved in construction and related activities and half sustained by transportation construction industry employee and firm spending throughout the U.S. economy.

She cautioned that thousands of these jobs could be in jeopardy if Congress fails to take action soon on a multiyear surface transportation reauthorization bill. SAFETEA-LU, the 2005 transportation authorization law, expired Sept. 30, 2009. A series of five short-term extensions have been passed over the last year because Congress has been unable to enact a new long-term measure.

Black determined transportation construction activity generates $159 billion annually in direct and induced U.S. wages. This translates to an estimated $13 billion in federal and state payroll taxes this year.

"What is often overlooked is that the work the transportation construction industry performs results in the nation's longest-lived capital assets," Black said in a statement. "And transportation infrastructure makes all kinds of other economic activity possible."

Using U.S. Census Bureau data and the U.S. Commerce Department's Regional Input/Output Modeling System, Black found the transportation construction industry's largest economic impact is in the state of California, where it generates or sustains more than 354,000 jobs. California is followed by New York (286,449 jobs) and Texas (276,276 jobs).

"Tourism, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, agriculture, forestry, general construction, mining, retailing and wholesaling are all wholly dependent on the work done by the U.S. transportation construction industry," Black said. "These, what I call 'dependent industries,' employ nearly 80 million Americans, who collectively earn more than $2.8 trillion each year and pay over $233 billion in state and federal payroll taxes."

More information is available at www.artba.org/economic-profile.