PROVIDENCE –– The ruinous recession that has swept thousands of Rhode Islanders out of their jobs has also pushed companies to cut salaries, force furloughs, scrap bonuses and put off promised pay hikes.

At the same time, many workers are being asked to pay more for their health care, another headache for families that is smothering consumer spending.

The annual rise in wages in Rhode Island has slowed substantially over the past two years. The average salary crept up 2.6 percent –– to $42,423 –– for the year that ended in September, compared with a 4.1 percent jump two years ago.

Total personal income, a broader category, actually fell in Rhode Island in the last six months of 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. For the last quarter of 2008, it was 1.6 percent lower than the same period in 2007.

The plague of joblessness has received most of the attention from economists and local policymakers, and it is alarming. In March, 10.5 percent of Rhode Island’s work force could not find a job, the sixth-highest level in the country.

The Labor Department on Friday announced that the national jobless rate hit 8.9 percent in April. Economists expect Rhode Island’s rate to be up when it is announced May 22.

Salary slippage, however, is also worrying, particularly in Rhode Island, where wages have long lagged behind the region and the country.

Piled on top of joblessness and fears of layoffs, meager wages may make consumers even less likely to go out to eat or make a big purchase, according to Michael Lynch, a regional economist for IHS Global Insight. “That certainly can have some impacts on consumer spending,” he said.

The risk, economists say, is that lower salaries lead to lower spending, pushing down prices and ultimately, forcing businesses to push salaries down further. Indeed, state sales tax receipts are $7 million behind projections for the fiscal year. And nationally, the consumer price index fell for the year ending in April, the first 12-month drop since 1955.

In a tour of 12 cities and towns aimed at boosting spending at local businesses, Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts said she has seen the results of too little walking-around money. “As people are earning less, they have less to spend,” she said in an interview. “People are feeling the impact of Rhode Islanders having fewer dollars in their pockets to spend. Businesses are seeing that decline.”

The average wage rarely drops, even during a recession. But lately, the roster of companies in the region cutting salaries has been lengthening.

In January, the Mohegan Sun casino, in Uncasville, Conn., slashed the salaries of its 10,000 employees, including many who commute from Rhode Island. Hourly employees saw paychecks shrink by 4 percent.

The next month, top administrators at Roger Williams Medical Center agreed to lower pay, and employees in Woonsocket City Hall accepted unpaid furloughs. In March, 350 employees at Cranston-based Taco were told their services were only needed four days a week –– a cost-savings measure that Cumberland manufacturer Hope Global introduced last fall.

Rhode Island factory workers saw their hourly wage fall in March, according to non-seasonally adjusted data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Participation is exploding in the state’s WorkShare program, which compensates workers for some of the lost earnings from suddenly abridged work weeks. In March, there were 3,253 new claims, a 72 percent jump from February, according to the state Department of Labor and Training.

Participants represent a range of industries, from manufacturers to insurance companies and financial services firms.

Even workers untouched by layoffs or reduced hours have seen money siphoned from their paychecks, as employers pass on more health-care costs to their workers.

That trend began before the economic downturn; nationally, the cost of insurance premiums has outpaced wages since at least 2001. In Rhode Island, too, “cost-sharing is going up,” the state health insurance commissioner, Christopher F. Koller, said.

“That’s affected a lot of people,” Lauren E.I. Slocum, president of the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, said on Friday. “The net to the employee coming home is reduced.”

Added employee health-care costs are among several factors undermining federal efforts to electrify consumers and spark a recovery. The reduction in federal payroll withholding, championed by President Obama as part of the stimulus package, fattened paychecks by only $10 a week.

Twenty-one percent of respondents to a national study by the consulting firm Watson Wyatt reported cutting salaries in April, up from 7 percent in February. Twenty-two percent of employers surveyed shaved off worker hours. “Pay increases,” the survey found, “are down across the board.”

Earlier this year, microchip maker Advanced Micro Devices, in Sunnyvale, Calif., announced wage cuts ranging from 5 percent to 20 percent, and heavy equipment maker Caterpillar pushed down the pay of many employees by 15 percent.

In Rhode Island, the union representing 1,900 city workers in Providence recently agreed to pay more for their health insurance and freeze salaries.

“We have five places under negotiations, and we have no increases on the table,” Stan Israel, executive vice president of the New England Health Care Employees Union, said. “It’s very difficult to negotiate in this climate.”

bgedan@projo.com