US Congress approval rating drops to record low: poll
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E-mail Xinhua, August 15, 2012
The approval rating of U.S. Congress has slid back to the all-time low of 10 percent, first recorded in February, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.
Eighty-three percent of the respondents said they disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job, the poll showed. The poll was conducted on Aug. 9-12, with a random sample of 1,012 American adults.
The approval rating of Congress was recorded at 30 percent when Gallup first introduced the poll in April 1974, but since then, Congress has been measured for more than 230 times, with the rating being averaged at 34 percent. The ratings had been below 40 percent since early 2005, below 20 percent every month since June 2011, and plunged to 10 percent in February, said the Gallup poll.
Before 2007, U.S. Congress approval ratings had been below 20 percent only twice -- in 1979 and 1992. The highest approval rating was 84 percent in October 2001, a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Congressional approval rating is down among all U.S. political groups, with Democrats at 9 percent, independents at 11 percent, and Republicans at 10 percent. Democrats' approval declined the most, from 18 percent in July, according to the poll.
The lingering economy woes is a major factor for the record low approval rating for U.S. Congress, which consists of a Republican- controlled House and a Democratic-dominated Senate, Gallup said.
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