Poll: U.S. still in recession, Obama's policies haven't helped

NEW YORK, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Most respondents believe the United States is still in recession and many feel President Obama's economic policies have hurt the country, a Fox News poll found.

Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed -- 74 percent -- said they felt the country had not pulled out of the recession, Fox News reported.

Still, that's an improvement from the 86 percent who expressed the same sentiment in September 2010, shortly before the president was re-elected.

Some 62 percent said they were dissatisfied with economic conditions in the country, a decline from 73 percent in October 2012, while 37 percent said they were satisfied. Democrats were three times more likely than Republicans to be positive on the topic.

The economy was considered the most important issue for Congress and the president to tackle by 49 percent of those polled. No other issue ranked as high, with healthcare in second place at 13 percent.

Jobs and unemployment and government spending were the top economic issues, at 40 percent and 36 percent respectively, of those surveyed.

Only 27 percent felt the president's economic policies had helped the country, while 40 percent said they had not. Another 33 percent said they hadn't made any difference.

The president's policies were disliked by 62 percent of the respondents, an 11-point rise from October 2012. Only a third of voters asked said they liked both Obama and his policies.

Overall, the poll found, 42 percent of those asked approved of Obama's performance, while 53 percent disapproved.

The survey of 1,010 random registered votes was conducted Jan. 19-21 by Anderson Robbins Research and Shaw & Co. Research. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.