U.S. households are worried, worried, worried about their future paychecks, consumer surveys show.

Shrinking incomes will be a problem for the economic outlook, creating a headwind that could become more dire if fiscal conservatives have their way and pull the rug out from under the unemployed.

Steve Blitz, senior economist at ITG Investment Research, looked at the performance of personal income during this business cycle. Wage and salary disbursements peaked in March 2008 — three months after the recession started — and cratered until early 2009.

Even by May 2011, paychecks are still shy of where they were at the 2008 peak, Blitz says. The paycheck gap is the result of job losses, loss of overtime and wage cuts put in place during the recession.

So, what allowed consumer spending to surpass its 2008 peak more than a year ago? In large part, cash paid by the government, especially the money that kicks in when economic troubles hit. These automatic stabilizers — such as jobless benefits and family assistance — “mollify the impact from a recession,” says Blitz.

Blitz added government transfer payments — excluding Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — to wages and salaries. This combination of incomes returned to its March 2008 level in January 2010, right before consumer spending recovered. Since then, it has grown $332 billion, providing money to keep consumer spending rising, if only weakly, so far this year.