The Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point Tuesday, but experts say the cut probably won?t help in an area many Long Island residents care about - the housing market slump.

?Overall, it?s not going to help the housing industry or the mortgage industry,? Martin Cantor, economist at Dowling College, says. ?But it will keep afloat a lot of companies that would normally go out of business and that will save jobs.?

The rate cut was just the latest effort on a federal level to rehabilitate the economy. It was the sixth rate cut since September.

Ralph Yacoubian, a business owner from Greenvale, says the rate cuts mean nothing to his economic situation. He says the economy is so bad that he had to close down his car wash a couple of months ago.

Cantor and many other economists aren?t hesitating with their use of the word ?recession? to describe the economy, though federal officials won?t call it that.

Cantor also said Tuesday?s rate cut won?t be felt in the economy for at least three months.