Obama holds 3-point national lead despite economic anxiety

{mosads}Only 30 percent say they expect their household’s financial situation to get better in the next year, and 63 percent say they believe prices for consumer goods will continue to rise.

The president is also posting his lowest approval numbers on the issue since then, with 44 percent of those surveyed indicating they’re satisfied with how the president is handling the economy. Some 55 percent say they disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy. Similarly, a majority disapprove of the president’s handling of unemployment for the first time in 2012.

But Mitt Romney has yet to sell the American people on his economic bona fides. The president still edges his Republican challenger by a point when respondents were asked whom they trusted to do a better job on the economy. And although the president’s handling of healthcare — and the reform legislation passed earlier in his term — remain unpopular, the president is trusted over Romney on the issue by a 9-point margin.