US polls show lowest approval for Obama, Congress

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New US polls show the lowest job approval rating for President Barack Obama as well as a declining endorsement of the already low-regarded Congress among the American public.

For the first time, according to the latest opinion polls, Obama appears to mirror his predecessor George W. Bush as his disapproval ratings exceed his approval figures.

Results of the latest Gallup poll on Obama's Job performance suggests a 61% disapproval score, while most polls place his disapproval figure at the 48% mark.

Some political analysts link Obama's disapproval rating to the persisting high jobless rate in the US.

"His approval rating track almost perfectly with the unemployment rate. So it turns out you would expect him whatever he had done, just given these economic conditions, you would expect an approval rating of below 50 percent," Thomas Mann of the political think-tank Brookings Institution told Press TV's Mike Kellerman.

Yet, there are others who think that the US president's efforts in polarizing the nation's political parties account for Obama's low approval numbers.

"I think one of the problem is he's polarized this government more than an other president [in American] history. He campaigned on being bipartisan and I think in the one year he has been in the office, he has really polarized the country and made that a lot worse in the political environment," an Obama supporter told the Press TV correspondent.

The US Congress, on the other hand, does much worse than Obama in the polls.

Nine out of 10 Americans maintain that Congress is doing a terrible job.

The new Harris poll finds that only 10 percent of Americans believe Congress is doing a good Job, down from 16 percent in January. That also constitutes an all-time low.