President Obama Back at Low on His Handling of the Economy

Two-thirds of Americans also do not have confidence in White House's ability to produce policies to fix economic crisis

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Jun 28, 2011, 06:04 ET

NEW YORK, June 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- After a few months of inching upwards, President Obama's rating on how he is handling the economy is moving downward, tying his lowest rating ever, in of October of last year. This month just one-quarter of Americans (27%) give the President positive ratings on the overall job he is doing on the economy while almost three-quarters (73%) give him negative marks. Last month, one-third (32%) gave him positive marks and 68% gave the president negative ratings on the economy.

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These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,163 adults surveyed online between June 13 and 20, 2011 by Harris Interactive.

The positive future for the economy is also taking a negative turn. In February, over one-third of Americans (34%) said they expected the economy to improve in the coming year, one-quarter (25%) thought it would get worse and two in five (42%) believed it would stay the same. This month, just one-quarter (26%) expect the economy will improve in the coming year, one-third (33%) say it will get worse and two in five (41%) believe it will stay the same.

Confidence in the White House

Along with declining job approval numbers, there is also a lack of confidence in the White House's ability to fix the current economic crisis. Soon after President Obama took office, in March of 2009, almost three in five Americans (57%) said they were confident that the White House and the Administration would produce policies to help fix the economic crisis. Almost a year later, in June of 2010 that number had dropped to just two in five U.S. adults (39%) who said they were confident that the White House would produce policies to fix the economic crisis while 61% said they were not confident. That number continues to fall and as now two-thirds of Americans (67%) say they are not confident the White House will produce policies to fix the economic crisis and just 33% are confident.

While nine in ten Republicans (91%) say they are not confident there is also a growing lack of confidence among Independents and even Democrats. Almost three-quarters of Independents (73%) say they are not confident in the White House's ability to fix the economic crisis and just 27% are confident. The numbers are better among members of the President's own party as almost three in five Democrats (59%) say they are confident, but this also leaves 41% of Democrats who are not confident in the Administration's ability to produce policies to fix the economic crisis.

The debt ceiling

One thing the White House also has to deal with in the upcoming months is the issue of the debt ceiling and whether it should be raised or not. Only one in five Americans (21%) are in favor of raising the debt ceiling while almost half (45%) are not in favor of raising it. What is telling and shows how confusing the situation is, is that one-third of U.S. adults (34%) are not at all sure.

If the debt ceiling is not raised, the government will need to at least temporarily stop paying for certain things to conserve funds. One-third of Americans (32%) say they government should temporarily stop paying civil servants while around one in ten say they should stop paying military personnel (11%), Medicare (9%) and Social Security (8%). But, over half of U.S. adults (56%) say that none of these four areas should stop receiving payments if the debt ceiling is not raised.

So What?

It may still be 16 months away, but the presidential election is already in full swing as the Republicans begin campaigning to see who will challenge President Obama next November. And, they are mostly all talking about one thing – the economy. This is for good reason. The American public is still anxious about how the economy is going and President Obama is the one who is getting the blame for this at the moment. How this plays out in the GOP nomination fight as well as in the general election is still up in the air, but it is clear the economy will be in the spotlight.

TABLE 1 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S JOB RATING ON THE ECONOMY - TREND "Now, turning to something different, how would you rate the overall job that President Barack Obama is doing on the economy?" Base: All adults
	2009
	March	April	May	June	Aug	Sept	Nov	Dec
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE (NET)	47	49	46	43	39	40	34	36
Excellent	13	13	10	3	9	7	6	6
Pretty good	34	36	36	34	31	33	27	30
NEGATIVE (NET)	53	51	54	57	61	60	66	64
Only fair	30	27	30	27	25	27	30	30
Poor	23	24	24	30	36	33	37	34

	2010										2011
	Jan	Mar	Apr	May	June	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb*	Mar	May	June
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE (NET)	31	32	33	36	32	32	29	27	31	30	33	33	33	32	27
Excellent	5	5	6	6	5	6	5	5	5	5	7	9	5	7	5
Pretty good	25	27	27	30	27	26	24	22	26	25	26	24	28	26	22
NEGATIVE (NET)	69	68	67	64	68	68	71	73	69	70	67	62	67	68	73
Only fair	31	30	31	29	32	29	31	33	30	34	30	22	29	28	30
Poor	39	37	36	34	37	39	40	39	39	36	37	39	38	40	43
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding; *In February "Not at all sure" was offered as a response choice and 4% responded in that way.

TABLE 2 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S JOB RATING ON THE ECONOMY – BY POLITICAL PARTY "Now, turning to something different, how would you rate the overall job that President Barack Obama is doing on the economy?" Base: All adults
	Total	Political Party			Philosophy
	Total	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.	Cons.	Mod.	Lib.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE (NET)	27	5	50	21	9	28	49
Excellent	5	1	10	3	2	3	14
Pretty good	22	4	40	18	7	25	36
NEGATIVE (NET)	73	95	50	79	91	72	51
Only fair	30	16	36	33	17	36	37
Poor	43	79	14	46	74	36	14
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 3 EXPECTATIONS FOR THE ECONOMY IN THE COMING YEAR - TREND "In the coming year, do you expect the economy to…?" Base: All adults
	2009					2010							2011
	April	May	Aug	Sept	Oct	May	June	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Feb	June
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Improve	39	38	46	40	34	38	30	29	28	30	34	29	34	26
Stay the same	35	35	32	36	37	34	42	39	40	40	41	45	42	41
Get worse	26	27	22	24	29	28	28	32	32	30	25	26	25	33
Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 4 CONFIDENCE IN THE WHITE HOUSE "How confident are you that the White House and the Administration will produce policies to help fix the economic crisis?" Base: All adults
	2009							2010		2011
	March	April	May	June	Aug.	Oct.	Nov.	Jan	June	June
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
CONFIDENT (NET)	57	57	55	49	53	44	44	41	39	33
Very confident	16	17	17	12	16	13	9	10	7	8
Somewhat confident	41	40	38	37	37	31	35	31	33	24
NOT CONFIDENT (NET)	43	43	45	51	47	56	56	59	61	67
Not that confident	23	21	24	25	23	25	25	26	27	31
Not at all confident	20	22	21	27	25	32	31	33	34	36
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 5 CONFIDENCE IN THE WHITE HOUSE – BY POLITICAL PARTY AND EDUCATION "How confident are you that the White House and the Administration will produce policies to help fix the economic crisis?" Base: All adults
	Total	Education				Political Party
	Total	H.S. or less	Some College	College Grad	Post Grad	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
CONFIDENT (NET)	33	27	30	39	49	9	59	27
Very confident	8	6	8	12	11	2	18	3
Somewhat confident	24	21	22	28	38	7	41	24
NOT CONFIDENT (NET)	67	73	70	61	51	91	41	73
Not that confident	31	31	35	28	26	28	29	34
Not at all confident	36	42	35	32	25	63	13	39
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 6 RAISING THE DEBT CEILING "There has been some talk recently about the "debt ceiling". Are you in favor of raiding the debt ceiling, or not?" Base: All adults
	Total	Political Party			Philosophy
	Total	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.	Cons.	Mod.	Lib.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
In favor of raising it	21	6	37	22	7	23	41
Not in favor of raising it	45	70	25	49	67	39	24
Not at all sure	34	24	38	30	26	38	36
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 7 WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD STOP PAYMENTS FOR TO CONSERVE FUNDS "If the debt ceiling is not raised, which of the following should the government stop payments for temporarily to conserve funds? Please select all that apply." Base: All adults
	Total	Political Party			Philosophy
	Total	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.	Cons.	Mod.	Lib.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Civil servants	32	42	25	33	40	31	22
Military personnel	11	6	14	10	7	10	17
Medicare	9	13	6	11	11	11	3
Social Security	8	9	6	8	7	9	5
None of these	56	49	62	55	50	58	63
Note: Multiple responses allowed

Methodology

This Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between June 13 to 20, 2011 among 2,163 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

The results of this Harris Poll may not be used in advertising, marketing or promotion without the prior written permission of Harris Interactive.

J40315

Q705, 710, 715, 720, 725

The Harris Poll® #78, June 28, 2011

By Regina Corso, SVP, Harris Poll, Public Relations and Youth Research, Harris Interactive

About Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive is one of the world's leading custom market research firms, leveraging research, technology, and business acumen to transform relevant insight into actionable foresight. Known widely for the Harris Poll and for pioneering innovative research methodologies, Harris offers expertise in a wide range of industries including healthcare, technology, public affairs, energy, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, media, retail, restaurant, and consumer package goods. Serving clients in over 215 countries and territories through our North American, European, and Asian offices and a network of independent market research firms, Harris specializes in delivering research solutions that help us – and our clients – stay ahead of what's next. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.

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SOURCE Harris Interactive