BOSTON — Rhode Island now ranks among 11 states in the country, and the only New England state, that is in recession, an economist said yesterday at the spring conference of the New England Economic Partnership.

Rhode Island has joined Nevada, Florida, California and Arizona, where declining home values and soaring foreclosures have slammed the brakes on economic growth.

Six other states — Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee and South Carolina –– also fell into recession, he said, though theirs were due primarily to a slowdown in manufacturing, mainly related to the auto industry, said Mark M. Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com and the national forecaster for the nonprofit research firm.

Nationwide, there have been a quarter of a million jobs lost since the end of last year, he said. Jobs are expected to grow an average of about 1.5 percent a year, according to NEEP.

New England’s job growth is forecast at 0.5 percent a year, on average, which is so small that economists generally considered it flat.

New England is expected to lag the nation through 2012 in its average annual gross state product, a measure of goods and services produced, with Rhode Island averaging the lowest growth rate at 2.1 percent.

Though the rest of New England has technically skirted a recession—generally defined as persistent, broad-based decline in economic activity — the forecast is for the region’s economy to remain essentially flat until early in the next decade.

“When it’s all said and done,” said Zandi, of Economy.com, “I think this period will be labeled a recession.”

Unlike past recessions, which were triggered by businesses taking on too much debt and then pulling back spending, Zandi said, this recession is being “led by consumers.”

Falling home values have meant that consumers can no longer use their houses like piggy banks, borrowing against the equity for everything from financing education to new cars and vacations. Rising mortgage defaults have prompted lenders to tighten credit, Zandi said, to levels not seen since the Federal Reserve’s temporarily tightening of the money supply under former President Jimmy Carter in 1979.

The result, in the simplest terms, has been more people with mortgages they can’t afford who are unable to refinance them, and that has helped drive up home foreclosures.

Meanwhile, gas prices have hit $4 per gallon, leaving consumers with less money for shopping and eating out — which further slows the economy. (Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of all economic activity.)

Rhode Island has been among the first states in the country to fall into recession, and the forecast shows it may be among the last to creep out.

“Rhode Island has the weakest economy right now in the region, said NEEP’s New England forecast manager and University of New Hampshire Prof. Ross Gittell. “And it’s not expected to do well over the [2008-2012] forecast period.”

This year, Rhode Island’s gross state product is forecast to fall 3.5 percent, personal income to fall 0.8 percent, and the state unemployment rate to average 5.7 percent, according to NEEP.

Rhode Island’s population also is expected to decline again this year, though not as steeply as last year.

Rhode Island house prices are also experiencing sharper declines than the rest of New England. By the end of next year, the median house price in Rhode Island is expected to have fallen 16 percent from its peak at the end of 2005, compared with the New England average decline of 11.7 percent, according to Gittell.

Rhode Island also has the highest mortgage delinquency rates in New England.

The “resiliency” of the rest of the New England economy can be largely attributed to Massachusetts, which accounts for more than 50 percent of the region’s economy, Gittell said.

The “bleak” forecast is due mainly to the fallout from the national credit crisis and the housing market.

“This recession is different because it’s being led by consumers,” Zandi said.

Nearly one quarter of all house sales nationally during the first quarter of this year were “distressed” sales, meaning they were sold to prevent a foreclosure or after the property was in foreclosure.

A big chunk of the stimulus package, Zandi says, will go directly back into consumers’ gas tanks — which means consumers may not be spending those rebate checks on shopping or eating out.

Every penny increase in gas prices, Zandi said, costs over $1 billion in consumer spending, which is “roughly the size of our rebate checks.”

larditi@projo.com