Americans are most dissatisfied with the country's direction now than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.

In the poll, 81 per cent of respondents said they believed 'things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,' up from 69 per cent a year ago and 35 per cent in early 2002.

Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, the Times says, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.

A majority of nearly every demographic and political group (Democrats and Republicans), men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school say the United States is headed in the wrong direction, the paper reported.

As many as 78 per cent said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.

Only 21 per cent of respondents said the overall economy was in good condition, the lowest such number since late 1992, when the recession that began in the summer of 1990 had already been over for more than a year.

In the latest poll, two in three people said they believed the economy was in recession today.

Showing dissatisfaction with President George Bush, only 28 per cent of respondents said they approved of the job he was doing, a number that has barely changed since last summer.

But Democrats, who have controlled the House and Senate since last year, also face the risk that unhappy voters will punish Congressional incumbents.

The poll found that Americans blame government officials for the crisis more than banks or home buyers and other borrowers. Forty per cent of respondents said regulators were mostly to blame, while 28 per cent named lenders and 14 per cent named borrowers.