The rate of satisfaction has average 25 percent so far this year.

Most Americans surveyed were satisfied at the end of 2004 — 55 percent — but satisfaction has been reserved for a dwindling minority since then.

American satisfaction has averaged 38 percent  since 1979, when Gallup first asked the question.

The highest yearly average of 60 percent was recorded in 1986, two years into President Ronald Reagan’s second term, and in 1998 and 2000, during the economic boom on President Bill Clinton’s watch.

The lowest yearly average of 15 percent was recorded in 2008, as the worst recession since the Great Depression took its toll.

Original post is Americans Can’t Get No Satisfaction by Political Capital.

Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama listens to a question during a press conference in the East Room of the White House on May 7, 2013 in Washington.

Gridlock doesn’t play well in Peoria.

President Barack Obama’s job approval — 51 percent in a Pew Research Center survey released today — has gained a few points since March, when Pew found 47 percent public support.

Yet six months after re-election, public perception of the president’s effectiveness has slipped from 57 percent to 49 percent, Pew reports in the poll released at noon.

The approval rating for Republican leaders in Congress — 22 percent — is “among the lowest approval rating for congressional leaders from either party in 20 years,” Pew reports.

In addition, a record 80 percent say the president and Republican leaders are not working together on important issues, and the public blames Republican leaders more than Obama for the gridlock by a margin of nearly two-to-one.

Six months after the president’s re-election, following the defeat of a gun safety agenda that the president pursued in the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut, schoolhouse shootings in December, the survey of 1,404 adults, conducted May 1-5, found the public divided over the perception of Obama as someone able to get things done — 49 percent said he is, 46 percent said he is not. Views of the president’s effectiveness have declined since shortly after re-election in November, Pew notes: More, 57 percent, viewed him as effective then.

Most people continue to say that Obama stands up for what he believes in (76 percent) and that he fights hard to get his policies passed (67 percent). Most also say Obama is a strong leader (56 percent), while 40 percent say he is not.

At 51 percent, the president’s job approval has edged up from its recent low of 47 percent in March, in Pew’s surveys. Yet it trails his 55 percent approval in early December.

Public opinion is split over which party can do a better job on key issues: 42 percent say the Republicans on the economy, 38 percent the Democrats; it’s a 38-38 split on immigration, and 42-39 in favor of Republicans on gun control.

The survey has a possible 2.9 percentage point margin of error. See the poll here.

Original post is Obama’s Effectiveness Slips: Pew Poll by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

People jog on the National Mall near the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

A plurality of voters don’t want split government, and would prefer one party to control both the White House and Congress, according to a Quinnipiac University poll out today.

The survey showed 48 percent of voters saying they want the same party in charge of both the executive and legislative branches, while 43 percent said they want political power divided. The Democrats currently control the White House and the Senate while the Republicans hold a majority in the House. Voters who said they were independents favored divided government, 53 percent to 35 percent.

Voters showed a preference for a Democratic congressional candidate over a Republican nominee,  41 percent to 37 percent margin. Democrats would need a net pickup of 17 seats to win back the House.

“The question, of course, is whether that margin will be there in 18 months when voters to go to the polls,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac polling institute.

That margin hasn’t been there in three of the last four off-year elections taking place during the last term of a two-term president. The party that didn’t control the White House gained congressional seats in 1958 (Dwight Eisenhower), 1986 (Ronald Reagan) and 2006 (George W. Bush). The exception: Democratic gains in 1998 under Bill Clinton.

Original post is Voters Weary of Divided Government by Political Capital.

Photograph by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images

A sign that mocks the Obama ‘Hope’ campaign sign from 2008 in front of a house in Ohio on Oct. 28, 2012.

Young people are polarized — more so than ever in their views of President Barack Obama.

This is the biggest take-away from a new Harvard Institute of Politics survey of Americans ages 18-29, the so-called millennials.

“The biggest and potentially most unfortunate piece of news is that, despite all the optimism and levels of participation in the first part of the decade, we’re seeing a growing level of cynicsm and partisanship among the youngest,” said John Della Volpe, director of polling.

Democrats have never been more supportive and Republicans never less supportive of the president than in this latest, April survey, he said in an interview today.

Fifty-two percent approve of the job the president is doing, which 46 percent disapprove. Among Democrats surveyed, 86 percent approve. Among Republicans, 10 percent approve. Among independents, approval runs at 46 percent.

“This gap in opinion between the way Democrats and Republicans see politics and in many cases the world, has grown sharper and more distinctive since 2010 — the last time that we can make the same methodological comparisons,” the report of the poll’s findings notes.

Even in “nonpolitical issues of the day, their view of the moral direction the country is heading in… Democrats and Republicans appear to be moving further apart, taking their direction from leaders in Washington,” Della Volpe said.

He also takes note of the survey’s findings on gun control, on which opinion hasn’t changed much since the shooting that wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona or after the mass shooting of children in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Young people are essentially split or exactly split on their impression of the NRA, 38-38” percent, he said. “Essentially, half of this generation believes that we should have more strict gun controls while the other half believes things should be kept as they are or less strict.”

The instituted surveyed 3,100 people ages 18-29, the results carrying a possible margin of error of 1.7 percent.

It found that 59 percent of them voted in the 2012 presidential election — 39 percent at a polling place, 10 percent voting early, another 10 percent by absentee ballots.

Original post is Millennials: More Divided Than Ever by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mario Tama/Getty Images

People yell during a protest for better wages for fast food workers in Harlem on April 4, 2013 in New York City.

Supporters of a minimum wage increase may have a surprising ally — small business owners.

More than two-thirds of them support increasing the federal minimum wage, according to a poll released yesterday by Small Business Majority, a non-profit advocacy group based in Sausalito, California. In fact, 85 percent of business owners say they already pay all of their workers more than the current minimum of $7.25 an hour, the poll found.

“The biggest concern for small business owners is that there be sufficient money in the economy for people to buy their goods and services,” said John Arensmeyer, chief executive officer of the Small Business Majority. “The more money the middle class has to spend, the better the economy does.”

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia already require employers to pay more than the $7.25 an hour mandated by federal law, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

President Barack Obama in February asked Congress for legislation to boost the minimum wage. Last month, Rep. George Miller of California and Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, both Democrats, followed up with legislation to raise the wage floor to $10.10 an hour. The bill faces long odds in Congress, with opposition mostly from Republicans including House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.

Arensmeyer, himself a one-time Silicon Valley entrepreneur, says there’s no such partisan divide among business owners. Among those polled, 46 percent identified themselves as Republican or independent-leaning Republican.

“There doesn’t appear to be this fantastically partisan set of views,” he said. “Among small business owners, increasing the minimum wage doesn’t show up on their list of top concerns.”

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research conducted the poll in early March, surveying 500 business owners who employed 50 or fewer workers. The survey has a margin of error of  plus or minus 4.4 percent.

Original post is Minimum Wage Boost: Surprising Ally by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Delegates watch a video about former President George W. Bush at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Tampa, Florida.

“After the most unpopular second term of the post-World War II era, ” pollster Gary Langer reports, former President George W. Bush “has gained in public esteem as time since his presidency has passed – not that the public’s ready yet to throw him bouquets.”

As President Barack Obama and others head to Dallas this week for the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center — a library, museum and research institute at the campus of Southern Methodist University — ABC News and the Washington Post have done some polling on the stature of the 43rd president. Bush’s approval ratings remain upside down in most cases, though he has recovered some ground.

His first term opened with a bid to reform education, and produced the No Child Left Behind Act by year’s end. It also saw the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which overran much of his domestic agenda for the remainder of that term — save for some tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. It saw an invasion of Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11, with a war that has run more than a decade, and it brought an invasion of Iraq in pursuit of suspected weapons of mass destruction that never materialized. More than 6,000 Americans have died in those wars — the Iraq war still largely unpopular. His hopes of overhauling immigration laws were set aside during that first term, and defeated in the Senate in his second term.

Bush left office in January 2009 with record-low approval ratings.

Now, Langer reports for ABC and the Post, Bush’s overall approval rating is 14 percentage points higher than at the end of his second term, his approval for handling of the economy 19 points higher, “and he’s gained, although more slightly, on the Iraq war as well.’

This is not unusual. “In polls four to five years after the end of their presidencies, Bush’s father gained 18 points in approval, but Bill Clinton slipped by 4 and Ronald Reagan lost 12,” Langer writes. ”(Reagan later improved in retrospect; it just took more time.)”

“Bush left office with just 33 percent approval, and a disapproval rating, 66 percent, that tied the disgraced Richard Nixon as the highest on record for a departing president in polls since the Roosevelt administration. Bush’s approval rating on average across his second-term, for its part, stands alone as the lowest on record in modern polling.”

“With his improvements since returning to Texas, Bush remains negatively rated on two central issues of his presidency, but more narrowly so than when he was in office. The public by 53-43 percent disapproves of his handling of the economy, compared with 73-24 percent in late 2008. And this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that Americans by 57-40 percent disapprove of his decision to invade Iraq. That compares with a 65-33 percent negative rating for his handling the situation there in mid-2008.”

The survey of 1,000 adults was run April 17-21 and has a possible margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

See the full ABC/Post Poll here.

See Bush camp celebration here:

As Pres Bush gets ready 2retake the stage, his approval rating is up to 47%. Same level as Pres Obama wapo.st/11H9Lku

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) April 23, 2013

Original post is Bush Revisited: Regaining Lost Ground by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Tire tracks run across the dry bottom of the Morse Reservoir in Cicero, Indiana, on July 12, 2012.

That’s the share of Americans who say global warming is a “very serious” problem, according to a Pew Research Center survey in March.

That compares with 32 percent who said global warming is a somewhat serious problem, 20 percent who said it’s not a problem, and 13 percent who said it isn’t too serious. The “very serious” percentage declined from 39 percent in 2012 and 45 percent in 2007, Pew data show.

While about two-thirds of Americans think global warming is a very serious or somewhat serious problem, most don’t consider it among the most urgent issues for lawmakers to address. 

The American public “routinely ranks dealing with global warming low on its list of priorities for the president and Congress,” according to a Pew analysis on April 2. Just 28 percent of Americans Pew surveyed said in January said that global warming should be a “top priority” for President Barack Obama and the Congress, the lowest-rated issue among 21 tested.

Fifty-two percent said protecting the environment should be a top priority, up 11 points from 2009, Pew data show. Bigger majorities say Obama and Congress should prioritize economic and job growth, curbing federal budget deficits, protecting the nation from terrorism and ensuring the financial stability of Social Security and Medicare.

“There is no indication” from polls “that young people’s commitment to a clean and healthful environment has lessened,” according to an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute in its compilation of polling from Pew and other survey organizations on environmental and energy issues. “They, like most Americans, simply attach less urgency to it than in the past.”

Today is Earth Day, which has been observed every April 22 since 1970.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 33 by Political Capital.

That’s the percentage of Americans who say they have a favorable opinion of the federal government in Washington — and it’s sinking, according to the Pew Research Center.

That figure, derived from surveys last month, represents the lowest favorability rating for the federal government in a Pew survey. The previous low was 33 percent in April 2012.

Most Americans view their state and local governments in a favorable light, with 57 percent saying they have a favorable opinion of their state government and 63 percent saying the same about their local government.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 28 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 1040 Individual Income Tax forms for the 2012 tax year.

That’s the share of Americans who identified taxes as the biggest problem facing the nation, according to Gallup surveys last month.

The share of people identifying taxes as the biggest problem historically has been in the low single digits, according to Gallup data  included in a 131-page compilation of polling on taxes since 1937 from the American Enterprise Institute.

More Americans identify the economy, government performance or employment as the most important problem facing the nation. In last month’s Gallup survey, about 13 percent identified the federal budget deficit or debt as the most important problem.

Over the past few years, the U.S. public has been about evenly divided between those who say their taxes are too high and those who say they’re about right, according to the AEI document. Those saying their taxes are too low register in the low single digits. Surveys suggest that people consider local property taxes more onerous than federal income taxes, according to AEI.

President Barack Obama is proposing some tax hikes in a budget blueprint administration officials released April 10. The document “proposed higher taxes for top earners, estates, private-equity managers and tobacco users, wrapped inside a call for ‘reforming our tax code,’” Bloomberg’s Richard Rubin reported yesterday. Republicans oppose the tax hikes.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 2% by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, left, and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein leave the White House after they and 13 other bank heads met with President Barack Obama on March 27, 2009 in Washington, DC.

President Barack Obama will meet with the heads of the world’s biggest banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Lloyd C. Blankfein and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon, seeking to strengthen ties that have been strained by new U.S. curbs on fees and trading.

The NTSB begins public meetings on the Boeing 787 lithium battery fire.

In the Senate, a cloture vote will determine whether lawmakers consider a bill to expand the background checks on gun purchases.

Bloomberg View Columnist Amity Shlaes joins a Cato Institute discussion on tax reform under President Calvin Coolidge.

Speaking of taxes, eliminating most deductions, lowering overall tax rates would be a “good idea,” voters say 47 percent to 35 percent, while 55 percent say the rich pay less than their fair share, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Almost two-thirds of American voters have someone else prepare their tax return.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Acting OMB Director Jeffrey Zients head to Capitol Hill to sell the Obama administration’s budget to hearings of House and Senate committees, while the House Appropriations panel hears from Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank on her agency’s spending plans.

The House Armed Services Committee hears from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey on the Pentagon’s budget request. The House Select Intelligence Committee holds a hearing on threats to the U.S. with witnesses including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director Robert Mueller. The Atlantic Council holds a discussion of the future of the Air Force, with topics including budget cuts, competitor nations and new technologies.

A House Energy and Commerce panel, chaired by Rep. John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican, holds a hearing on the Coal Ash Recycling and Oversight Act of 2013 as the Senate Environment Committee hears from EPA head nominee Gina McCarthy at her confirmation hearing. NOAA holds a conference call on its Drought Task Force.

The rebound in homebuilding after a six-year slump should generate as many as 500,000 jobs this year and 700,000 in 2014, including related services, estimates Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial. Price is the top forecaster of employment over the past two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The SEC’s Dodd-Frank Investor Advisory Committee meets today. A Senate Banking panel holds a hearing on the role of regulators and consultants in the scrapped multibillion dollar settlement over mishandled foreclosures. A House Financial Services panel on capital markets holds a hearing on derivatives provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act.

The Washington International Trade Association holds the third in a four-part series of discussions on Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, this one on U.S. priorities and objectives. Bloomberg Government’s Robert Litan and Navigant Economics Managing Director Hal Singer discuss how FCC policies affect investment in telecommunications at ITIF.

And this evening, filmmakers Ken Burns and David McMahon discuss their film “The Central Park Five” after a screening at the National Press Club.

Original post is Washington Daybook: Banks, Budgets and Guns by Political Capital.