Tru,
Your local economy isn't the only one hurting. We only have basically minimum pay jobs around here any more as clerks at the stores and even some of them are closing. And as for housing, the number of For Sale signs grows daily it seems as the big real estate bubble here busted big time and the real estate companies are stuck with a big amount of over priced houses and are trying to get the owners to lower the prices so they can get rid of their big log of listings. I believe the paper last month said the number of housing permits was down by around 48% from last year.
Ron