A CNN/Opinion Research Poll July 18-20 found that 54 percent of people disapproved of the way Obama is handling his job, compared with 46 percent in an April 29-May 1 poll. The survey showed 55 percent had an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party, compared with 48 percent in a March 11-13 poll. The poll showed 49 percent had an unfavorable opinion of the Democrats, compared with 48 percent in the March poll.

Outside the Beltway

"Politicians from both parties are out of touch," Doris Capello, 63, a retired college professor from Westchester County, New York, said yesterday while waiting for a train at New York's Grand Central Station.

"One of the arguments is that a lot of them have been in Washington for too long," said Capello, a registered Democrat. "We need people who have experience but we also need them to really be in touch with their constituents."

Obama acknowledged anger in his speech yesterday.

Americans are "fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word," Obama said. "They work all day long, many of them scraping by, just to put food on the table."

Taking Offense

"They see leaders who can't seem to come together and do what it takes to make life just a little bit better for ordinary Americans," Obama said. "They are offended by that. And they should be."

The 2008 financial crisis that prompted the U.S. government to prop up hobbled financial giants with a $700 billion taxpayer-funded bailout left many Americans struggling with unemployment, depressed wages, soaring foreclosure rates and slashed retirement savings.

One in 111 U.S. homes had at least one foreclosure filing in the first half of this year, RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based provider of default data, reported July 14. The U.S. unemployment rate inched up to 9.2 percent in June, from 9.1 percent in May, and has hovered around 9 percent since March 2009, according to Labor Department data.

"The status quo has gotten a lot of people rich," said Matthew Slade, 40, who is shop chairman of UAW Local 175 in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he works for a General Motors plant that packages vehicle replacement bumpers. "It's worked out for the elite very, very well."