Sixty-two percent of Americans feel the country has slid into a recession,
a Rasmussen Reports poll finds.
Meanwhile broader confidence in the economy continues to fall.
The Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures consumer confidence on a daily basis, dropped three points on Sunday to 84.9. The index is down a point from a week ago, down two points from one month ago and down four points from three months ago.
Editor's Note: Startling Proof of the End of America’s Middle Class. Details in the Video
"Sixty-two percent (62 percent) of consumers believe the United States is in an economic recession, while 20 percent disagree," Rasmussen reports.
Investors feel just as gloomy about the economy as do consumers.
The Rasmussen Investor Index fell two points on Sunday to 91.2, just above a five-month low last week.
Investor confidence is down a point from a week ago, three points from a month ago and six points from three months ago.
"Among investors, 61 percent say the economy is in a recession and 24 percent disagree," Rasmussen finds.
Other polls indicate similar worries.
Seventy-five percent of Americans are very worried or somewhat worried the country is headed for a recession, a poll conducted by the The Hill finds.
Among those concerned, 46 percent said they were "very" worried and 29 percent said they were "somewhat" worried, The Hill adds.
A string of poor economic indicators point to a cooling economy.
The Commerce Department reported that retail sales fell by a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in May, while April’s figure was revised to a 0.2 percent decline from a previously reported gain of 0.1 percent.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's preliminary reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment fell to 74.1 in June from to 79.3 in May, Reuters reports, well below a 77.5 forecast by a Reuters poll of economists.
Consumer spending drives 70 percent of the U.S. economy.
The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, recently reported that industrial production, which includes output from the nation's factories, mines and utilities, contracted 0.1 percent in May from 1.0 percent in April, whose figure was revised down from 1.1 percent.
All those numbers were released after May's dismal jobs report, which showed the country added a net 69,000 jobs that month.
By comparison, January and February added 275,000 and 259,000 net jobs, respectively.
Such figures don't bode well for President Barack Obama.
"Historically, presidents don't usually get re-elected when the economy is performing as sluggishly as it is now," says Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, according to Reuters.
"Many people out there, if you asked them in surveys, they'd say they still view the economy as being in recession."
Editor's Note: Startling Proof of the End of America’s Middle Class. Details in the Video
© 2013 Moneynews. All rights reserved.