Poll: 60% say economy getting worse

August 9, 2011

Politico

REID J. EPSTEIN

Six in 10 Americans think the economy is still getting worse and 75 percent believe the nation is doing badly, according to a CNN poll released Monday.

The poll, conducted this weekend after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded the nation’s AAA credit rating for the first time in its history, marked a 24 percentage point increase since April of people who believe the economy is in a downturn, CNN said.

The poll also found Obama’s approval ratings are 44 percent, the lowest since last September.

“Since the question was first asked in the spring of 2009, the number of Americans who said the economy was in a downturn had never been higher than 40 percent,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. “The jump in economic pessimism is across the board - a majority of every major demographic and political subgroup thinks the
economy is in a downturn and getting worse.”

The three-quarters of Americans who believe “things” in the nation are going “pretty badly” or “very badly” represents a 15 percentage point increase in pessimism since May, the network’s poll found.

The poll also found Americans divided on the merits of last week’s debt ceiling agreement. CNN found 48 percent of Americans approved of the deal, while 50 percent disapproved.

“Democrats dislike the agreement because they think it benefits the rich. Republicans dislike the agreement because they think the spending cuts don’t go far enough,” Holland said. “Independents dislike the bill for both reasons - a majority of them see it as unbalanced, and also believe that the spending cuts should have gone further.”

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