With the economy still struggling to regain some traction, and with unemployment still hovering over nine percent, a Bloomberg-commissioned poll released Wednesday shows that a plurality of Americans say they’re worse off now than they were when George. W. Bush was president.
In the poll, 44% of respondents said they are personally worse off now, while 34% said things were worse when Bush occupied the White House.
Further, citing rising gas prices and a expressing doubts about the ability for the economy to turn around in the near future, 66% said the country was on the wrong track.
Those findings pile on top of a spate of recent surveys that have a painted a gloomy picture of Americans’ attitudes about the nation’s economic health, and shown widespread pessimism about President Obama’s ability to do anything about it. According to the latest TPM Poll Average, just 40% of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance when it comes to the economy, compared to 55.8% who disapprove — and things have been getting markedly worse in the past few months.
The Bloomberg poll was conducted June 17-20 among 1,000 adults nationwide. It has a 3.1% margin of error.
