US 'still doing poorly'

2009-11-04 11:07

Washington - A majority of Americans still feel their country is faring badly one year after President Barack Obama's White House win, but their ranks have been dwindling steadily since the financial crisis broke last year, a CNN poll has found.

Sixty-three percent of 1 018 adults surveyed in the poll released late on Tuesday said things in the United States were going pretty badly to very badly, against 37% who thought they were going fairly well to very well.

Both opinions had been changing gradually since mid-2008, when the financial crisis began.

In a November 6-9 poll last year, the number of Americans who thought their country was faring very badly peaked at 83%, while those who thought things were going well bottomed out at 16%. That survey was conducted just days after Obama won the presidential elections on November 4, 2008.

The latest poll coincided with a Commerce Department announcement last week that the US economy had rebounded from recession in the third quarter, posting its strongest economic growth in two years.

Obama claimed the upswing was a result of the $787bn stimulus package passed by Congress shortly after he took office in January.

Conducted on October 30-November 1, the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll had a three percent margin of error. Of the adults surveyed, 952 were registered voters.

- SAPA