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The American economy appears to have created far fewer jobs this spring than has been reported so far, a new government report indicated yesterday. That could provide further impetus for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates when it meets Dec. 11.

The report included a sharp downward revision of the government’s estimate of personal income growth for the second quarter. Because the changes were made as soon as better employment figures were available, the revisions made it seem likely that figures on job creation are also likely to be revised downward in coming months.

The new report concluded that personal income from wages and salaries grew at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the second quarter, far below the 4.5 percent that had previously been estimated.

The government did not explain why the revision was made, and it is possible that some of it came from reducing estimates of wages or of the profits that employees received from exercising stock options. But it was most likely, said Robert J. Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, that the largest part of the revision came from a change in employment estimates.

If so, he said, he expected the government would revise its estimate of the number of jobs created in the quarter, to as little as 50,000 a month from 126,000 a month. That would indicate that the economy was much weaker than had been thought.