While the rich have recovered nicely from the Bush Recession of 2007-09, most other Americans have not. There are still too many people out of work, wages remain stagnant, the middle class continues to shrink, poverty remains high, and the gap in wealth & income between the rich and the rest of America continues to grow larger. Who is to blame for that?
Since January of 2009, the Republicans have been trying to shift the blame for this country's economic woes from Bush to Obama (and trying to hide the fact that they have tried to sabotage everything the president has tried to do to improve the economy). They have been partially successful in their disingenuous effort. Currently 43% of the public say President Obama is to blame. But much to the GOP's consternation, an even larger percentage (49%) continue to blame President Bush for damaging the economy so badly that we have still not recovered.
The chart above was made from a recent Rasmussen Poll -- done on July 12th and 13th of a random national sample of 1,000 likely voters, and has a margin of error of 3 points.
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Republicans also like to say that President Obama is not a popular president (in spite of the fact that he was re-elected by a wide margin). What they won't mention is that President Obama is much more popular than the last president from their party (George W. Bush).
The chart below shows the approval of presidents since World War II in the 26th quarter of their term. Note that in the 26th quarter of his presidency, President Obama has 46.1% -- that's 14.3 points higher than the approval for George W. Bush in his 26th quarter (31.8%). In fact, President Obama has never had less than 41% approval -- nearly 10 points higher than Bush's 31.8%.
This chart was made from a recent Gallup Poll -- done between April 20th and July 19th of a random national sample of 45,080 adults, with a margin of error of only 1 point.
