More than a third of Americans believe President Obama’s policies are hurting the economy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
And it’s not just the president who is feeling the heat for the continued recession. Approximately as many people hold congressional Republicans’ policies responsible for the poor economy, and 65 percent disapproved of their handling of jobs, compared to 52 percent for Obama. A majority of Americans blame former president George W. Bush for the poor state of the economy, the poll found.
Ninety percent of poll respondents said the economy isn’t doing well, and four out of five said jobs are hard to find.
Independents tended to align more with Obama than Republicans on the issue of jobs, but the number of liberal Democrats who strongly support Obama’s jobs record dropped from 53 percent last year to 31 percent this summer. The number of African Americans who think the president has helped the economy has also tumbled from 77 percent in October to just over half.
The survey showed that Americans who most closely identified with the tea party movement are also most likely to have had lifestyle changes result from the economic downturn.
The poll, conducted from July 14-17, surveyed a random national sample of 1,001 adults and had a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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