Voters blame Obama most for slow economic recovery

James Cessna

These discussions were very interesting.

Two-thirds of likely voters say the weak economy is Washington’s fault, and more blame President Obama than anybody else, according to a new poll for The Hill.

It found that 66 percent believe paltry job growth and slow economic recovery is the result of bad policy. Thirty-four percent say Obama is the most to blame, followed by 23 percent who say Congress is the culprit. Twenty percent point the finger at Wall Street, and 18 percent cite former President George W. Bush.

The results highlight the reelection challenge Obama faces amid dissatisfaction with his first-term performance on the economy.

The poll, conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, found 53 percent of voters say Obama has taken the wrong actions and has slowed the economy down. Forty-two percent said he has taken the right actions to revive the economy, while six percent said they were not sure.

Obama has argued throughout the presidential campaign that his policies have made the economy better. He says recovery is taking a long time because he inherited such deep economic trouble upon taking office in 2009.
“The problems we’re facing right now have been more than a decade in the making,” he told an audience last month in Cleveland.

http://thehill.com/polls/239377-the-hill-poll-majority-of-voters-blame-president-for-bad-economy

Black Swan

The information provided by the news article cited and the pdf file showing the Pulse Opinion Research results appear incomplete and should therefore be viewed with caution.

It may be that if they statistically controlled (e.g., tests for significant differences, etc.) for party affiliation the results may still stand, but this was problematic given the way the table was reported. Without these details, someone could contend that the results occurred along party lines; i.e., Obama was blamed for poor economic performance by 34% in the poll (plus or minus 3% confidence interval), and there were 35% Republicans participating in the poll.

A major statistical problem exists with these poll results, as with most polls reported to the public. These results were descriptive, and not inferential; i.e., they describe opinion at a moment-in-time (cross-sectional) by a small sample, but fail to explain or predict outcomes.

Brian?

If there is one thing that differentiates US politics from other western countries it's the level of polling. Polls that are largely meaningless.