No Bounce for President Obama on Economic Job Ratings

NEW YORK, May 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — While his overall job rating may have gone up after the death of Osama Bin Laden, President Obama’s economic job rating has not seen the same bounce. Just one-third of Americans (32%) give him positive ratings on the overall job he is doing on the economy while almost seven in ten (68%) give him negative ratings. This is only a slight change from March when 33% gave the President positive marks on the economy and 67% gave him negative ratings.

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,184 adults surveyed online between May 9 and 16, 2011 by Harris Interactive.

Much of the reason behind these negative numbers is the overall sense the economy is bad. Three in five Americans (59%) say the economic conditions in their region of the country are bad, one-quarter (23%) say they are neither good nor bad and fewer than one in five (18%) say they are good. While this isn’t good, it is better from the height of the economic crisis when in January 2009 almost three-quarters of Americans (72%) said the economic conditions of their region of the country were bad. In terms of the different regions the Midwest seems to be the worst as almost two-thirds (64%) say the conditions in their region are bad.

Jobs

The one thing that everyone is watching closely with this economic recovery is when the job market will also start to rebound. While Americans may still rate the job market as overall bad, this is the “best” the feelings towards employment have been since 2008. Currently, three in five U.S. adults (61%) say the current job market in their region of the nation is bad, while almost one-quarter (23%) say it is neither good nor bad and 16% say it is good. In March, almost two-thirds of Americans (65%) said the job market was bad and 13% said it was good.

Looking ahead for the job market, three in ten U.S. adults (30%) expect the job market to be better over the next six months while one in five (21%) say it will be worse and half (49%) believe it will remain the same. In March, one third of Americans (32%) thought the job market would be better in the next six months and 16% believed it would be worse.

So What?

Jobs and the economy remain to be top concerns for Americans and until these turn around in their mind, nothing else will be able to rise to the top. Attitudes on this issue have been holding steady for a while now but they have been holding steady in a negative light. The hope for the White House is that the economy and job market turns around and they, and President Obama, get the credit for that turnaround in time for next November’s election.