ALEX COHEN, host:

From NPR News, it's Day to Day. The government reports today that construction spending dropped point four percent in May. OK, that is not a huge drop, but it is the 11th drop in the past year. Marketplace's Janet Babin is here. Janet, let me take a wild guess. Is this drop maybe something to do with the weak housing market?

JANET BABIN: Oh, Alex, I do believe it is. The Commerce Department reports that residential construction dropped one point six percent in May. It was the 25th decline out of the past 26 months for homebuilding. And compared to a year ago, home construction's down more than 27 percent. It makes sense that when there's a backlog of unsold new and existing homes near record levels, the companies are going to build fewer houses, and that's really what's happening. And on top of that, home foreclosures continue to increase, as we keep hearing, and that's putting even more homes - preexisting homes - on the market. So homebuilders continue to cut back, as opposed to letting those homes sit unsold.

COHEN: Janet, what about other types of construction? Were they down for May, too?

BABIN: Yeah. Private non-residential construction actually rose a little bit, point two percent, in May. And there were stronger gains there in March and April, too. I spoke to Mark Zandi about this. He's chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. And he says, commercial construction's been bolstered by a steady stream of hotel and motel building. Despite the economy's problems, Alex, until very recently, we were all still taking those trips and vacations.