Obama's approval rating unchanged at 41 percent

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama's approval rating stands at 41 percent, a drop of 14 points in the course of the year, a poll released Friday indicates.

The president's disapproval rating stands at 56 percent, unchanged since last month, the CNN/ORC International poll says.

In the afterglow of his 2012 re-election, Obama's rating was 55 percent, but declined steadily as he dealt with one controversy after another, including NSA surveillance, IRS targeting of political groups, the faulty start-up of the healthCare.gov. website and the controversy over millions of Americans being told of the loss of their insurance plans, CNN said.

Obama's approval rating in Friday's poll matches his rating last month, the lowest number he has ever had.

The poll said 40 percent of respondents disapprove of Obama because his policies have been too liberal, with 12 percent saying administration policies are not liberal enough.

The poll of 1,035 adults nationwide, questioned by phone, was conducted Dec. 16-19 by ORC International for CNN. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.