Voters Continue to Give Obama Low Marks on the Economy

Voters still are inclined to think President Obama can do a better job when it comes to the economy.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 35% of Likely U.S. Voters feel the president is doing a good or excellent job handling the economy, but 47% rate the job he's doing in this area as poor, the most negative finding since mid-November.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Obama has suffered a similar decline in his job approval ratings as measured by the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.  At the same time, the number of voters who rate his handling of national security issues as poor has hit its highest level since the beginning of December.

Sixty-six percent (66%) of Democrats think the president is doing a good or excellent job when it comes to the economy. Seventy-three percent (73%) of Republicans and 52% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties grade his work in this area as poor. 

Most voters who work for the government (52%) give the president positive marks when it comes to the economy. A plurality (48%) of those employed in the private sector view his performance as poor. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of African-American voters say he is doing a good or excellent job, a view shared by just 31% of whites and 23% of voters of other races.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 22-23, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.