Having a job (or three) is far from enough After getting laid off early this year, David Fagerstrom Sr. managed to find not one, but three, jobs. Yet he still has a big problem: The combined pay of the part-time positions is less than a third of his old salary at Kronos Inc. in Chelmsford. As a result, Fagerstrom, who worked nearly a decade as a business operations analyst at the software maker, has cut spending everywhere he can, including restaurant meals, vacations, and nights out with friends. He's falling behind on car and mortgage payments, and foreclosure no longer seems unthinkable. 'It's really forcing us to live life on the edge,' said Fagerstrom, 63, of Salem, N.H. 'There just ain't enough coming in.' Fagerstrom's predicament helps explain why the economy has been so slow to rebound from the recent recession, and why many economists expect a long, difficult recovery ahead. As fast as jobs have disappeared over the past year, wage and salary income has fallen even faster, as many workers have had their pay cut, hours reduced, or like Fagerstrom, had to take part-time or low-paying jobs because they can't find other work. Wage and salary income drives consumer spending, which in turn drives the US economy, according to analysts. And with credit tight and many consumers unable to borrow against rising home values, many people have little extra money to spend. Wages and salaries are expected to play an even bigger role in supporting economic activity in coming years. Nationally, the number of people working part time because they can't find full-time work has doubled since the recession began at the end of 2007, to about 9.2 million, according to the US Labor Department. In Massachusetts, the number has nearly tripled, to about 175,000, according to Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies. 'A lot of people are underemployed, and that magnifies the impact of the recession,' said Northeastern economics professor Alan Clayton-Matthews. 'They work less, they have less money, and they spend less. That's the vicious cycle of recessions.' While wage and salary income has ticked up a bit recently, it is coming off a devastating slide over the past year. Wages and salaries paid by private employers nationally have fallen from the previous year for four consecutive quarters, the most prolonged decline in 60 years, according to the US Commerce Department. In Massachusetts, which entered the recession later than the nation, wage and salary income has fallen for three consecutive quarters, according to estimates by Clayton-Matthews. In the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, wages and salaries paid by Massachusetts employers plunged 5 percent from a year earlier, compared with an employment decline of about 3 percent. Meanwhile, spending fell about 8 percent during the same period. As the income decline shows, the official unemployment rate, as high as it is, fails to capture completely the weakness of the economy. Fagerstrom, for example, is counted as employed by the US Labor Department because he teaches an economics class at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, another economics class at Southern New Hampshire University in Salem, N.H., and does occasional contract work for a Maryland firm. Together, the three jobs pay him about $30,000 a year. But it still feels like unemployment to Fagerstrom. 'Financially, it's really touch and go,' he said. 'I would still like to believe I have the talents to earn the same salary I earned at Kronos,' where he earned about $100,000 a year. More than 24 million, or 16 percent, of US workers, including more than 400,000, or 13 percent, in Massachusetts, are counted as unemployed or working part time because they can't find full-time employment. The official unemployment rate is 10 percent nationally, 8.8 percent in Massachusetts. The large number of people competing for jobs means that people's earnings are likely to increase only slowly, analysts said. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, said the national jobless rate would have to slip below 9 percent before workers begin to see modest gains in their paychecks, although it wouldn't be enough to keep up with inflation. The unemployment rate is not expected to fall below 9 percent until the second half of 2011, according to Moody's Economy.com's forecast. The unemployment rate would have to fall to about 6 percent - which most economists say is several years away - before workers experience real, inflation-adjusted gains, Zandi said. 'That doesn't mean the economy can't come back. It just can't come roaring back,' Zandi said. 'Wages and salaries are the fuel that powers consumer spending, which is the key to economic recovery. If they're falling, consumers don't have the fuel or fire power to spend.' With so many workers looking for jobs, it's a buyer's market for employers. Cindy-jo Gross was a vice president for a senior health care management firm when she was laid off more than a year ago. She decided to leave the executive suite to work closer to patient care, expecting to take a pay cut to change her career focus - but not as big a cut as some companies wanted. Some offered salaries that were just over half of what she had earned before, saying that they could find people who would work for a lot less. 'The competition was up, and the demand was down,' said Gross, 46, who recently started a job managing a primary care practice in Foxborough for Partners HealthCare System Inc., at about 25 percent less than her old salary. Evens Auguste, 50, of Brockton, is earning less than half of his old salary. After getting laid off from an information technology job, he spent more than a year looking for a similar position. In January, he took a job driving a Cambridge cab. Married, with a grown daughter, Auguste said there's just enough money to pay the bills. 'Going out for dinner is out of the question,' he said. He still hopes to find a new technology job. He's studying computer security to add another certification to his two associate's degrees. In the meantime, he's driving 12-hour shifts, six days a week, typically earning $50 to $80 a day, although he has made as much as $150 in a shift. 'Sometimes,' he said, 'you have a good day. But it doesn't happen that much.' Robert Gavin can be reached at rgavin@globe.com. 