News 12 @ 11 o'clock -- November 23, 2008

NORTH AUGUSTA, SC -- Clayton Young has been trying to keep his dry wall business above ground since the economy began to slump, but with home construction dropping to it's lowest level in 50 years, work for Young has been more than just slow.

"There's not enough work. I've let people and cut my men's pay. I make less money, so they got to make less money," said Clayton Young.

Young says he used to hang 400 to 500 drywall boards every week. Now, he's lucky to hang 30 every two weeks; and at about 8 dollars a board, he's making less than 300 dollars a job.

Young says if the economy doesn't pick up soon, he'll have to drop his business altogether and pick up something new.

"There's no money. There's no money to be made in this anymore so I got to go find work elsewhere," said Young.

And that may be the case for others across the country too. Just this week the roof collapsed on Georgia School Superintendent Kathy Cox and her husband.
The couple filed for bankruptcy and Cox says her husband's increasingly slow home building business is to blame.

For Young, he hopes it doesn't get to that point for him, but says he'll have to do what he can to make ends meet.

"In the long run, if it keeps getting worse, then you've just got to find you a new trade to get into," said Young.

And as bad as it feels here in the south, we've actually only seen a slight gain of about one and a half percent. But compared to the northeast, the construction there dropped a whopping 31 percent last month.