On the very day John F. Kennedy died, a cottage industry was born. Fifty years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, it’s still thriving.

 Its product? The “truth” about the president’s assassination.

 ”By the evening of November 22, 1963, I found myself being drawn into the case,” Los Angeles businessman Ray Marcus wrote in “Addendum B,” one of several self-published monographs he produced on the assassination. For him, authorities were just too quick and too pat with their conclusion.

 ”The government was saying there was only one assassin; that there was no conspiracy. It was obvious that even if this subsequently turned out to be true, it could not have been known to be true at that time.”

 Most skeptics, including Marcus, didn’t get rich by publishing their doubts and theories — and some have even bankrupted themselves chasing theirs. But for a select few, there’s been good money in keeping the controversy alive.

 Best-selling books and blockbuster movies have raked in massive profits since 1963. And now, with the 50th anniversary of that horrible day in Dallas looming, a new generation is set to cash in.

 Of course, the Warren Commission officially concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone — and issued 26 volumes of documents to support that determination. But rather than closing the book on JFK’s death, the report merely served as fuel for an already kindled fire of doubt and suspicion.

 Since then, even government investigators have stepped away from the lone assassin theory. In 1978, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations ended its own lengthy inquiry by finding that JFK “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”

 That panel acknowledged it was “unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.” But armed with mountains of subsequently released documents, there has been no shortage of people willing to offer their own conclusions.

 Among the leading suspects: Cuban exiles angry about the Bay of Pigs fiasco; Mafiosi enraged by Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s attacks on organized crime; the “military-industrial complex,” worried about JFK’s review of war policy in Vietnam.

 One theorist even floated the notion that Kennedy’s limousine driver shot the president — as part of an effort to cover up proof of an alien invasion.

 Anything but that Oswald, a hapless former Marine, was in the right place at the right time, with motive and opportunity to pull off one of the most audacious crimes in American history.

 ”As they say, nature abhors a vacuum, and the mind abhors chance,” says Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society and author of “The Believing Brain,” a book on how humans seem hardwired to find patterns in disparate facts and unconnected, often innocent coincidences.

 Polls underscore the point.

 About 6 in 10 Americans say they believe multiple people were involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, while only one-fourth think Oswald acted alone, according to an AP-GfK survey done in mid-April. Belief in a conspiracy, though strong, has declined since a 2003 Gallup poll found 75 percent said they thought Oswald was part of a wider plot.

 The case has riveted the public from the start. When the Warren Commission report was released in book form, it debuted at No. 7 on The New York Times Best Sellers List.

 Two years later, attorney Mark Lane’s “Rush to Judgment” dominated the list. The Warren Commission, he argued, “frequently chose to rely on evidence that was no stronger and sometimes demonstrably weaker than contrary evidence which it rejected.”

The book has since sold millions of copies in hardcover and paperback, says Lane.

 Since then, dozens of books with titles like “Best Evidence,” ”Reasonable Doubt,” ”High Treason” and “Coup D’Etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy” have sought to lay responsibility for JFK’s death at the highest levels of the U.S. government — and beyond.

 British journalist Anthony Summers, whose BBC documentary became the 1980 book “Conspiracy,” says many conspiracy buffs “are fine scholars and students, and some are mad as hatters who think it was done by men from Mars using catapults.”

 Unlike the later coverage of Watergate, there were no reporters like The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who were told by their editors, “Get on this and don’t get off it,” says Summers, whose works focused on people and events largely ignored or treated cursorily by the official investigations. “Nobody went down there and really did the shoe leather work and the phone calls that we’re all supposed to do,” he says.

 For many, the Kennedy assassination has become “a board game: ‘Who killed JFK?’ So you feel free to sit around and say, ‘Oh! It’s the mob. Oh! It’s the KGB’ … and have no shame,” scoffs Gerald Posner, whose 1993 book “Case Closed” declared that the Warren Commission essentially got it right.

 The Oswald-as-patsy community has vilified Posner.

 But the lawyer says he didn’t set out to write a defense of the Warren Commission. Instead, he planned to go back through the critical evidence to see what more could be determined through hindsight and more modern investigative techniques — “and then put out a book that says, ‘Read THIS book. Here are the four unresolved issues of the Kennedy assassination, with the evidence on both sides.’”

 Halfway through the allotted research time, Posner went to the editorial staff with a new idea: A book that says flat-out who killed Kennedy.

 ”Who?” one of the editors asked, as Posner retells it.

“Oswald,” he answered.

 ”And who?”

 ”Oswald,” Posner says he repeated. “And they literally looked at me as though I had just come in from Mars. And you could tell there was this feeling of, ‘Oh my God. He’s read the Warren Commission and that’s all he’s done.’”

 ”Case Closed” went on to sell 100,000 copies in hardcover. “I would have never thunk it,” Posner says.

 Unlike Posner, Vincent Bugliosi, author of 2007′s “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” embarked on his book expecting to vindicate the Warren Commission.

 What he didn’t expect was for it to balloon into a 1,650-page behemoth — with a CD-ROM containing an additional 960 pages of endnotes — that cost $57.

 ”STOP writing,” he recalls his wife telling him. “You’re killing the sales of the book.”

 The 78-year-old lawyer blames the conspiracy theorists. “We’re talking about people,” he explains, “who’ve invested the last 15, 20, 25 years of their life in this. They’ve lost jobs. They’ve gotten divorces. Nothing stops them.”

 ”Like a pea brain,” he says, he responded to all of their allegations. “It’s a bottomless pit. It never, ever ends. And if my publisher … didn’t finally step in and say, ‘Vince, we’re going to print,’ I’d still be writing the book.”

 Despite its girth and hefty price tag, “Reclaiming History” had a respectable first printing of 40,000, says Bugliosi, best known as the former deputy Los Angeles district attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson.

 But in a 9,400-word review, Gary L. Aguilar, a director of the Washington-based Assassination Archives and Research Center, wrote that the only thing Bugliosi’s book proved was “that it may not be possible for one person to fully master, or give a fair accounting of, this impossibly tangled mess of a case.”

 Bugliosi omitted or distorted evidence and failed to disprove “the case for conspiracy,” Aguilar wrote.

 Lamar Waldron is not surprised at the success of people like Bugliosi and Posner.

 ”The biggest money has been generated for the authors … who kind of pretend it all was right back in 1964 and nothing really has happened since,” says Waldron, who has co-written two books on the assassination. “The large six-figure advances and everything like that don’t go to the people who dig through all those millions of pages of files and research for years.”

 In “Ultimate Sacrifice” and “Legacy of Secrecy,” Waldron and co-author Thom Hartmann used declassified CIA documents to make the case that JFK (and later his brother Robert) were killed because of plans to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro — and the Mafia’s infiltration of that operation. Waldron says the books have sold a combined 85,000 copies since 2005.

 And now, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are set to star in a feature film version of “Legacy of Secrecy” — with a reported price tag of up to $90 million.

 That’s one of a pair of major movies — landing on opposite sides of the Oswald-as-lone-gunman debate — due out this year.

 Oscar winners Marcia Gay Harden and Billy Bob Thornton have signed on for the Tom Hanks-produced “Parkland,” named for the Dallas hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead. That project, which Hanks’ website describes as “part thriller, part real-time drama,” is based on a small portion of Bugliosi’s magnum opus.

 A TV movie is to be made from another new book, “Killing Kennedy,” co-written by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, which had sold 1 million copies within four months of its release in October. In a note to readers, O’Reilly wrote: “In our narrative, Martin Dugard and I go only as far as the evidence takes us. We are not conspiracy guys, although we do raise some questions about what is unknown and inconsistent.”

 Academy Award winner Errol Morris is working on a documentary about the assassination. He did not respond to an interview request.

 One film, critics say, has done more than anything to shape the public’s perception of the assassination: That’s Oliver Stone’s 1991 drama, “JFK.”

 ”He made this kind of paranoid conspiracy theory respectable,” says New York writer Arthur Goldwag, author of “Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies.”

 The movie tells the story of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner. Garrison remains the only prosecutor to bring someone to trial for an alleged conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

 The film is “a remarkable litany of falsehoods and misrepresentations and exaggerations and omissions,” Posner says. “The reason that I’m so hard on Stone is because he’s such a good filmmaker. If he was a schlocky filmmaker, it wouldn’t matter.”

 Shermer, of the Skeptics Society, agrees that Stone’s role in stirring the conspiracy pot is “huge.”

 ”You tell somebody a good story, that’s more powerful than tons of data, charts and graphs and statistics,” he says. “And Oliver Stone’s a good storyteller. He’s biased and he’s very deceptive, and I don’t trust him at all. But the movie’s great.”

 Stone’s publicist said the director had “chosen to pass on this opportunity” to comment.

 ”JFK” took in more than $205 million at the box office, nearly two-thirds of that overseas, and has since raked in untold millions more in television royalties, pay-per-view, and videocassette and DVD rentals.

 In the recent AP-GfK poll, respondents were asked how much of what they knew about the JFK case came from various sources. Only 9 percent cited movies or fictional TV shows, while the greatest portion, 37 percent, said history texts and nonfiction books.

 About two dozen JFK-related titles are due on bookstore shelves in coming months, says Patricia Bostelman, vice president of marketing for Barnes & Noble booksellers. Among them is “They Killed Our President: The Conspiracy to Kill JFK and the Cover-Up That Followed,” by former pro wrestler and Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.

 Other authors are taking advantage of the anniversary to reissue or expand on previous works.

 Waldron is working on a book focusing on mob figures who confessed to being part of a conspiracy to kill the president. Summers is publishing a sequel to “Conspiracy,” incorporating material released since 1980, while Bugliosi has a “Parkland” paperback to accompany the movie release.

 And “Case Closed” will soon appear for the first time as an e-book. Despite the mountains of documents released since its publication, and a mountain of criticism of his conclusions, Posner says there is no plan to update it, other than perhaps including a new foreword.

 ”I moved on to other subjects,” he says.

 On Nov. 22, 1963, John Kelin was a 7-year-old second-grader in Peoria, Ill. He says the Kennedy assassination is “my earliest clear memory in life.”

 But he didn’t really give the case much thought until 13 years later, when as a sophomore at Eastern Michigan University he attended a lecture by Mark Lane. It was the first time he saw the Abraham Zapruder film that captured the moment when Kennedy was fatally wounded.

 ”Using slow motion and freeze frame, Lane made sure that all of us sitting in that hot, poorly ventilated auditorium understood that Kennedy’s head and shoulders were slammed backward and to the left, and that Lee Harvey Oswald’s alleged shooting position was behind the presidential limousine,” Kelin wrote in a book, “Praise from a Future Generation,” about early critics of the Warren Report. “In a way, that lecture was the genesis of this book.”

 Kelin bristles at references to a conspiracy theory “industry,” preferring to think of himself as part of a grass roots response to the government’s “severely flawed, unsatisfactory explanations for what really happened in 1963.”

 His publisher, Wings Press, has “made intimations” about releasing a digital edition of “Praise” for the 50th anniversary. Meanwhile, Kelin has written another JFK book — a fictional account of how he came to write the first one.

 ”It’s kind of a satire of the present-day research community,” he says, “with a love story thrown in to try to broaden the interest level.”

 The title: “Conspiracy Nut.”

 ___

AP writer David Porter in Newark, N.J., also contributed to this report.

Breed is a national writer, based in Raleigh, N.C. He can be reached at features(at)ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AllenGBreed

___

Note: The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted April 11-15, 2013 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications.  It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,004 adults nationwide. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points, it is larger for subgroups.

Online: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

 A clear majority of Americans still suspect there was a conspiracy behind President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, but the percentage who believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone is at its highest level since the mid-1960s, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

 Cheryl Casati, 62, who retired from the Air Force after 20 years, watched it all unfold on television back in November 1963. She said she’s “extremely sure” there was a conspiracy. The killing of Oswald, the accused shooter, just days after the assassination is part of the reason why.

 ”There’s too many holes in explanations,” the Phoenix-area woman said. “That just could not have happened easily in that time and place. And (Jack) Ruby shooting (Oswald) could not have happened as easily as it did.”

 Pat Sicinski sees it differently. She and her husband recently visited the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. Looking out the sixth-floor window from which Oswald allegedly fired on Kennedy’s motorcade helped reaffirm the retired school employee’s faith in the Warren Commission conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman.

 ”Some skepticism is always justified,” the 68-year-old Houston-area woman said. “I just think when people take it to extremes, they lose me.”

 According to the AP-GfK survey, conducted in mid-April, 59 percent of Americans think multiple people were involved in a conspiracy to kill the president, while 24 percent think Oswald acted alone, and 16 percent are unsure. A 2003 Gallup poll found that 75 percent of Americans felt there was a conspiracy.

 The Oswald-acted-alone results, meanwhile, are the highest since the period three years after the assassination, when 36 percent said one man was responsible for Kennedy’s death.

 Robert Mawyer of Blairsville, Ga., is one of them. The 44-year-old IT salesman recently finished reading Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing Kennedy.” Assuming all of that information is correct, he has no problem accepting that Oswald went solo.

 ”The Warren Commission says that’s what happened, so I tend to believe that, I guess,” he said. But, he added, “I don’t suppose anybody can be completely positive.”

 Jon Genova is positive that no one person could have pulled off this crime.

 ”There are just a number of factors that don’t seem to zero out in my mind,” the 46-year-old Denver mechanical engineer said. “How some evidence seemed to be suppressed, and the results are sealed for how many years? And the fact that … it just seemed like the whole political winds change at the point when Kennedy was assassinated. It just seemed as if he was probably an impediment.”

 Those who were adults in 1963 were almost as likely as younger Americans to say that Kennedy’s killing was a conspiracy involving multiple people _ 55 percent, compared to 61 percent.

 As for who might have been behind a conspiracy, Genova’s money is on the Central Intelligence Agency. Casati, who wouldn’t divulge her rank or military occupation, was a little more circumspect.

 ”I will tell you that Jack Kennedy was too much of his own person,” she said. “And he made decisions that were not popular with some agencies, as far as I’m concerned.”

 The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted April 11-15, 2013 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications.  It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,004 adults nationwide. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.

___

 AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

 __

 Online:

http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

How the AP-GfK poll on the assassination of John F. Kennedy was conducted

 The Associated Press-GfK poll on the assassination of John F. Kennedy was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications on April 11-15. It is based on landline telephone and cellphone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted with 601 respondents on landline telephones and 403 on cellular telephones.

 Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

 Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

 As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cell only and both types — by region.

 No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3.9 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

 There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

 Topline results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com and http://surveys.ap.org.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

By BEN NUCKOLS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s been a rough offseason for the Washington Redskins, and not just because of the knee injury to star quarterback Robert Griffin III.

The team’s nickname, which some consider a derogatory term for Native Americans, has faced a barrage of criticism. Local leaders and pundits have called for a name change. Opponents have launched a legal challenge intended to deny the team federal trademark protection. A bill introduced in Congress in March would do the same, though it appears unlikely to pass.

But a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that nationally, “Redskins” still enjoys widespread support. Nearly four in five Americans don’t think the team should change its name, the survey found. Only 11 percent think it should be changed, while 8 percent weren’t sure and 2 percent didn’t answer.

Although 79 percent favor keeping the name, that does represent a 10 percentage point drop from the last national poll on the subject, conducted in 1992 by The Washington Post and ABC News just before the team won its most recent Super Bowl. Then, 89 percent said the name should not be changed, and 7 percent said it should.

The AP-GfK poll was conducted from April 11-15 and included interviews with 1,004 adults on both land lines and cell phones. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Several poll respondents told The AP that they did not consider the name offensive and cited tradition in arguing that it shouldn’t change.

“That’s who they’ve been forever. That’s who they’re known as,” said Sarah Lee, a 36-year-old stay-at-home mom from Osceola, Ind. “I think we as a people make race out to be a bigger issue than it is.”

But those who think the name should be changed say the word is obviously derogatory.

“With everything that Native Americans have gone through in this country, to have a sports team named the Redskins — come on, now. It’s bad,” said Pamela Rogal, 56, a writer from Boston. “Much farther down the road, we’re going to look back on this and say, ‘Are you serious? Did they really call them the Washington Redskins?’ It’s a no-brainer.”

Among football fans, 11 percent said the name should be changed — the same as among non-fans. Among nonwhite football fans, 18 percent said it should change, about double the percentage of white football fans who oppose the name.

In Washington, debate over the name has increased in recent months. In February, the National Museum of the American Indian held a daylong symposium on the use of Indian mascots by sports teams. Museum Director Kevin Gover, of the Pawnee Nation, said the word “redskin” was “the equivalent of the n-word.”

District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray, a Democrat, suggested that the team would have to consider changing the name if it wanted to play its home games in the city again. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who represents the district in Congress, said she’s a fan of the team but avoids saying “Redskins.” Just this week, a D.C. councilmember introduced a resolution calling for a name change, and it appears to have enough support to pass, although the council has no power over the team.

“We need to get rid of it,” said longtime local news anchor Jim Vance in a commentary that aired in February. Vance, of WRC-TV, revealed that he has avoided using the name on the air for the past few years.

Other media outlets have done the same. The Washington City Paper substitutes the name “Pigskins,” and DCist.com announced in February that it would avoid using the name in print. The Kansas City Star also has a policy against printing “Redskins.”

In March, a three-judge panel heard arguments from a group of five Native American petitioners that the team shouldn’t have federal trademark protection, which could force owner Daniel Snyder into a change by weakening him financially. A decision isn’t expected for up to a year, and the Redskins are sure to appeal if it doesn’t go their way. A similar case, ultimately won by the team, was filed in 1992 and needed 17 years to go through the legal system before the Supreme Court declined to intervene.

Several poll respondents told AP that they were unaware of the ongoing debate.

“If we’re going to say that ‘Redskins’ is an offensive term, like the n-word or something like that, I haven’t heard that,” said David Black, 38, a football fan from Edmond, Okla., who doesn’t think a change is necessary.

George Strange, 52, of Jacksonville, Fla., who feels the name should change, said people might change their minds if they become more educated about the word and its history.

“My opinion, as I’ve gotten older, has changed. When I was younger, it was not a big deal. I can’t get past the fact that it’s a racial slur,” Strange said. “I do have friends that are Redskins fans and … they can’t step aside and just look at it from a different perspective.”

There’s precedent for a Washington team changing its name because of cultural sensitivities. The late Washington Bullets owner Abe Pollin decided the nickname was inappropriate because of its association with urban violence, and in 1997, the NBA team was rechristened the Wizards.

Other professional sports teams have Native American nicknames, including the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and baseball’s Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians. But former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, who is Native American, said “Redskins” is much worse because of its origins and its use in connection with bounties on Indians.

“There’s a derogatory name for every ethnic group in America, and we shouldn’t be using those words,” Campbell said, adding that many people don’t realize how offensive the word is. “We probably haven’t gotten our message out as well as it should be gotten out.”

Numerous colleges and universities have changed names that reference Native Americans. St. John’s changed its mascot from the Redmen to the Red Storm, Marquette is now the Golden Eagles instead of the Warriors and Stanford switched from the Indians to the Cardinal.

Synder, however, has been adamant that the name should not change, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said he supports the team’s stance. General Manager Bruce Allen said in March that the team isn’t considering a new name.

Following the symposium at the museum, the team posted a series of articles on its official website that spotlighted some of the 70 U.S. high schools that use the nickname Redskins.

“There is nothing that we feel is offensive,” Allen said. “And we’re proud of our history.”

___

AP Sports Writer Joseph White, AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ben Nuckols on Twitter at https://twitter.com/APBenNuckols.

___

Online:

The questions and answers from the poll: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

 How the AP-GfK poll on the Washington Redskins was conducted

 The Associated Press-GfK poll on the Washington Redskins was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications from April 11-15. It is based on landline telephone and cellphone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted with 601 respondents on landline telephones and 403 on cellular telephones.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cellphone only and both types — by region.

No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3.9 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

 Topline results http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com and http://surveys.ap.org

 WASHINGTON (AP) — For the third year in a row, the nation’s economic recovery has hit a springtime soft spot. Reflecting that weakness, only 1 in 4 Americans now expects his or her own financial situation to improve over the next year, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows.

 The sour mood is undermining support for President Barack Obama’s economic stewardship and for government in general.

 The poll shows that just 46 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s handling of the economy while 52 percent disapprove. That’s a negative turn from an even split last September — ahead of Obama’s November re-election victory — when 49 percent approved and 48 percent disapproved.

 Just 7 percent of Americans said they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always,” the AP-GfK poll found. Fourteen percent trust it “most” of the time and two-thirds trust the federal government just “some of the time”; 11 percent say they never do.

 The downbeat public attitudes registered in the survey coincide with several dour economic reports showing recent slowdowns in gains in hiring, consumer retail spending, manufacturing activity and economic growth. Automatic government spending cuts, which are starting to kick in, also may be contributing to the current sluggishness and increased wariness on the part of both shoppers and employers.

 Overall, 25 percent of those in the poll describe the nation’s economy as good, 59 percent as poor — similar to a January AP-GfK poll.

Respondents split on whether this was a “good time” to make major purchases such as furniture and electronic devices, with 31 percent agreeing it was, 38 percent calling it a “bad time” and 25 percent remaining neutral.

 The economy’s recovery from the severe 2007-2009 recession has been slow and uneven. Even so, most economic forecasts see continued economic growth ahead, even if it is sluggish and accompanied by only slowly improving levels of joblessness. Another recession in the near future is not being forecast.

 In the new poll, few say they saw much improvement in the economy in the last month. Just 21 percent say things have gotten better, 17 percent say they’ve gotten worse and 60 percent thought the economy “stayed about the same.” And the public is split on whether things will get better anytime soon, with 31 percent saying the national economy will improve in the next year, 33 percent saying it will hold steady and 33 percent saying it will get worse. Further, about 4 in 10 expect the nation’s unemployment rate to climb in the next year.

 And the public’s outlook for its own financial future is at its worst point in three years. Just 26 percent think their household economic well-being will improve over the next year, 50 percent think it will stay the same and 22 percent expect it to worsen.

About 27 percent of those with incomes under $50,000 are the most likely to expect things for them personally to get worse in the next year compared with fewer than 2 in 10 among those with higher incomes.

 Democrats, who typically rate the economy better under the present Democratic president than do Republicans, have become less optimistic about their financial prospects since January. Then, 41 percent of Democrats thought their finances would improve in the next year while only 30 percent feel that way now.

 Jeremy Hammond, 33, of Queensbury, N.Y., a Web programmer, says Congress should focus on “the incredible debt and lack of spending control.” For instance, he said, it’s absurd for Congress to try to force the Postal Service to continue Saturday mail delivery — an effort that has so far failed — when the agency says, “We can’t afford it.’ Hammond, who considers himself a political independent, said he voted for Obama in 2008 but not in 2012.

 Obama’s overall job approval in the poll is at its lowest point since his re-election, at 50 percent, with 47 percent disapproving. His approval among Republicans is just 10 percent; among independents, 49 percent disapprove.

 But, if it’s any solace to the president and his supporters, Congress fared even worse. Thirty-seven percent approve of the performance of congressional Democrats, while 57 percent disapprove. For congressional Republicans, 27 percent approved of their performance and 67 percent disapproved.

 The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted April 11-15 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,004 adults nationwide. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. It is larger for subgroups.

 ___

AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and writer Charles Babington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Tom Raum on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum

___

Online:

http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

How the AP-GfK poll was conducted

The Associated Press-GfK poll on the economy was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications from April 11-15. It is based on landline telephone and cellphone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted with 601 respondents on landline telephones and 403 on cellular telephones.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cellular only and both types — by region.

No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3.9 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

 Topline results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com and http://surveys.ap.org

 WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s re-election glow is gone. Congress’ reputation remains dismal. And only about one in five Americans say they trust the government to do what’s right most of the time, an Associated Press-GfK poll finds.

Most adults disapprove of Obama’s handling of the federal deficit, a festering national problem. But they also dislike key proposals to reduce deficit spending, including a slower growth in Social Security benefits and changes to Medicare.

Rounding out the portrait of a nation in a funk, the share of people saying the United States is heading in the wrong direction is at its highest since last August: 56 percent.

The government in Washington is “dealing with a lot of stuff that are non-issues,” said Jeremy Hammond, 33, of Queensbury, N.Y.

Hammond, a Web programmer and political independent, said Congress should focus on “the incredible debt and lack of spending control.” He said it’s absurd for Congress to force the Postal Service to continue Saturday mail delivery when the agency says “we can’t afford it.”

Hammond reflects the lukewarm feelings toward Obama found in the poll. Asked his opinion of the president, Hammond paused and said: “I don’t know. I voted for him in 2008, not in 2012.” When it comes to presidents, he said, “it’s one set of lawyers or the other.”

Just 7 percent of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always,” the AP-GfK poll found. Fourteen percent say they trust it “most” of the time. Two-thirds trust the federal government only some of the time; 11 percent say they never do.

Obama’s overall job approval rating is at its lowest point since his re-election: 50 percent, with 47 percent disapproving. His approval rating among Republicans — 10 percent — is back to where it was before the election. Among independents, disapproval has crept up to 49 percent.

With more and more components of the 2010 “Obamacare” health law taking effect, 41 percent of Americans approve of the president’s handling of health care. That’s the lowest level during his time in office.

Ratings of the president’s handling of the economy, meanwhile, are back in negative territory, with 52 percent disapproving and 46 percent approving. In last September’s run-up to the election, 49 percent said they approved, and 48 percent disapproved.

In the new poll, disapproval among independents on handling the economy is up 10 percentage points since September 2012. It now stands at 57 percent.

Obama’s budget proposals are winning few kudos. Fifty-six percent of Americans disapprove of the way he is handling the federal deficit, while 39 percent approve. Those levels have changed little in the past 15 months.

Public support has dropped, however, for proposals recently floated by Obama and others to slow the growth of benefits in the popular but costly Social Security and Medicare programs.

Opposition to raising the Medicare eligibility age has grown over the last few months in AP-GfK polling. Shortly after the fall election, 48 percent opposed such a plan, while 40 percent supported it. Opposition has grown by 11 points since then, with 59 percent now saying they dislike the idea.

Support among Democrats fell from 41 percent last fall to just 27 percent now, with 60 percent opposed.

Curiously, perhaps, the sharpest drop in support for a higher Medicare eligibility age was found among adults under 30. The new poll found 32 percent of them backing the idea, compared to 48 percent last fall. Medicare, the major health care program for seniors, is partly funded by payroll taxes on all wage earners.

Most Americans also oppose a proposal to slow the cost-of-living hikes in Social Security benefits. Now, 54 percent oppose the idea, up slightly from January, when 49 percent opposed it. Only about a quarter favor it.

Donald Roberts of Kingsport, Tenn., is among those who want no changes to Medicare and Social Security. “Leave them alone,” he said, “because it’s all you can do to get by on it.”

Roberts, 57, a political independent and former construction worker, receives disability benefits and is diabetic. He said Medicare pays for his doctor visits, but he must cover some of his medications’ cost.

Roberts also shared the often-heard disenchantment with Obama. “He’s OK, I guess,” Roberts said. “I wouldn’t have voted for him.”

Hammond, the 33-year-old Web programmer, holds a different view of Medicare and Social Security.

“They are critical programs,” he said, “but we should start privatizing some of that stuff.”

Hammond said he thinks younger workers could get better returns if at least some of their payroll taxes were invested in stocks or other instruments, and then earmarked for each worker’s eventual retirement.

Americans are ambivalent about raising taxes on wealthier households, which Obama proposes as a means to help shrink the deficit. Forty-five percent support new limits on itemized tax deductions for the top 2 percent of earners. That covers individuals making at least $183,000 a year, and married couples making $223,000 or more. One in three Americans oppose the idea.

Most Democrats — 57 percent —favor the proposal. But only 41 percent of independents and 33 percent of Republicans do.

Most Americans support Obama’s “Buffet rule,” which would require those making $1 million or more annually to pay at least 30 percent of their earnings in federal income taxes. Just under 60 percent support the idea, while 29 percent oppose it.

Democrats might find comfort in the fact that Republican lawmakers are even less popular than Democrats.

Thirty-seven percent of adults approve of congressional Democrats, while 57 percent disapprove. Republicans in Congress fare worse: 27 percent approve of their performance, and 67 percent disapprove.

Even self-identified Republican adults have dim views of GOP lawmakers. Just 44 percent approve of the way congressional Republicans handle their jobs, and 52 percent disapprove.

Democrats’ views of their own party’s lawmakers are considerably better, with 68 percent approving the job being done by Democrats in Congress.

The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted April 11-15, 2013, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,004 adults nationwide. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.

__

News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Online: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

 How the poll was conducted

 The Associated Press-GfK poll on President Obama, politics and the federal budget deficit was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications from April 11-15. It is based on landline telephone and cellphone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted with 601 respondents on landline telephones and 403 on cellular telephones.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cell only and both types — by region.

No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3.9 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

 Topline results available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com and http://surveys.ap.org.

 WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan effort to expand background checks is in deep trouble as the Senate approaches a long-awaited vote on the linchpin of the drive to curb gun violence. As the showdown draws near, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows ebbing public support for tightening gun control laws.

 In the run-up to the roll call expected Wednesday, so many Republicans had declared their opposition to the background check measure that supporters — mostly Democrats — seemed headed to defeat unless they could turn votes around in the final hours. Supporters seemed likely to lose some moderate Democratic senators as well.

 ”It’s a struggle,” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, conceded Tuesday.

 Perhaps helping explain Democrats’ problems, an AP-GfK poll this month showed that 49 percent of Americans support stricter gun laws. That was down from 58 percent who said so in January — a month after the December killings of 20 children and six aides at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school propelled gun violence into a national issue.

 Just over half the public — 52 percent — expressed disapproval in the new survey of how President Barack Obama has handled gun laws. Weeks after the Newtown slayings, Obama made a call for near universal background checks the heart of his gun control plan.

 In a climactic day, the Senate planned to hold eight other votes Wednesday besides the one on background checks, all of them amendments to a broad gun control measure.

They included Democratic proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, which are expected to lose; a Republican proposal requiring states to honor other states’ permits allowing concealed weapons, which faces a close vote; and a GOP substitute for the overall gun measure.

 The concealed weapons amendment, seen by advocates as protecting gun rights, was vehemently opposed by gun control groups, who say it would allow more guns into states with stricter firearms laws.

 The votes were coming a day after former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, badly injured in a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., and her husband, Mark Kelly, tried galvanizing gun control support by visiting Capitol Hill and attending a private lunch with Democratic senators. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the lunch — senators said it included emotional speeches from lawmakers — “as moving as any” he has attended.

 Background checks, aimed at screening out criminals and the seriously mentally ill from getting firearms, now apply only to purchases handled by licensed firearms dealers.

Wednesday’s first vote was on an amendment by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., extending the checks to firearms sales at gun shows and online. The compromise was widely seen as advocates’ best chance for winning enough GOP votes to muscle broadened checks through the Senate.

 As the roll call approached, Manchin and others kept saying they were close — but never said they had the votes they needed.

 ”We’re close, but we sure need their help,” Manchin told reporters after he and Toomey met privately with Giffords and Kelly.

 In a sign that the two senators faced a steep path to victory, they were no longer considering a change to their bill that would have exempted people who live far from gun dealers.

 Such people have a difficult time getting to dealers’ shops to have background checks performed. The hope had been to attract votes from Alaska and North Dakota senators, and the sponsors’ decision to move ahead without it suggested that their effort to win over those senators would fail.

 No. 2 Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin of Illinois said Democrats would need support from nine or 10 Republicans — a daunting task.

 Opponents will need just 41 of the Senate’s 100 votes to derail the Manchin-Toomey background check plan.

 Thirty-one senators voted last week to completely block debate on overall gun legislation. Just two were Democrats — Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska.

 If all 31 oppose the Manchin-Toomey measure — and that is not certain — opponents would need just 10 more votes to prevail.

 So far, 11 of 16 Republicans who voted last week to let debate on the gun bill begin have said they will oppose Manchin-Toomey. That would give foes of expanded background checks 42 potential votes — one more than they need to win.

 Still uncertain was support from some Democrats from GOP-heavy states, including Max Baucus of Montana, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Baucus and Landrieu face re-election next year.

 The Senate gun bill would extend background checks to nearly all gun purchases, toughen penalties against illegal gun trafficking and add small sums to school safety programs.

 The AP-GfK poll found that overall, 49 percent said gun laws should be made stricter while 38 percent said they should stay the same.

 Among independents, support for stricter gun laws dipped from 60 percent in January to 40 percent now. About three-fourths of Democrats supported them then and now, while backing among Republicans for looser laws about doubled to 19 percent.

 The AP-GfK poll was conducted from April 11-15 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,004 randomly chosen adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

 __

AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta, news survey specialist Dennis Junius and writers Henry C. Jackson, Stephen Ohlemacher and Jim Abrams contributed to this report.

___

Online: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

How the AP-GfK poll was conducted

The Associated Press-GfK poll on gun control was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications from April 10-14. It is based on landline telephone and cellphone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted with 601 respondents on landline telephones and 403 on cellular telephones.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cell only and both types — by region.

No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3.9 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

Topline results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 6 in 10 Americans now favor allowing illegal immigrants to eventually become U.S. citizens, a major increase in support driven by a turnaround in Republicans’ opinions after the 2012 elections.

The finding, in a new Associated Press-GfK poll, comes as the Republican Party seeks to increase its meager support among Latino voters, who turned out in large numbers to help-re-elect President Barack Obama in November.

Emboldened by the overwhelming Hispanic backing and by shifting attitudes on immigration, Obama has made overhauling laws about who can legally live in the U.S. a centerpiece of his second-term agenda. In the coming weeks, he’s expected to aggressively push for ways to create an eventual pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country.

The poll results suggest that the public overall, not just Hispanics, will back his efforts. Sixty-two percent of Americans now favor providing a way for illegal immigrants in the U.S. to become citizens, an increase from just 50 percent in the summer of 2010, the last time the AP polled on the question.

In an even earlier poll, in 2009, some 47 percent supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Further boosting the president on the issue, Democrats have opened a 41 percent to 34 percent advantage as the party more trusted to handle immigration, the first time they’ve held a significant edge on the matter in AP-GfK polling. In October 2010, Republicans held a slight edge over Democrats, 46 percent to 41 percent, on the question of who was more trusted on immigration.

Much of the increase in support for a path to eventual citizenship has come among Republicans. A majority in the GOP — 53 percent — now favor the change. That’s up a striking 22 percentage points from 2010. Seventy-two percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents like the idea, similar to 2010.

The findings suggest that those GOP lawmakers weighing support for eventual legal status for illegal immigrants could be rewarded politically not just by Democrats and independents but also by some in their own party as well. This comes amid soul-searching in the party about how the GOP can broaden its support with Latinos, who backed Obama over Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, 71 percent to 27 percent, in November. Romney received less support from Latinos than Republican President George W. Bush did. But his slice was on par with candidates Bob Dole in 1996 and George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Some Republicans have concluded that backing comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship is becoming a political necessity. Many lawmakers remain strongly opposed, and it’s far from clear whether Congress will ultimately sign off on such an approach. But in the Senate, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is working to draft immigration legislation, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a possible 2016 presidential candidate, has offered proposals that would ultimately allow illegal immigrants to attain legal status.

One poll participant, Nick Nanos, 66, of Bellmore, N.Y., said that providing a way for illegal immigrants to become citizens would respect America’s history as a nation built by immigrants.

“We act as if our grandparents got here legally. Don’t want to ask a single Indian about that,” Nanos said in a follow-up interview. “I don’t think that most of us can solidly come to a point where our grandparents or great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents were here legally. What does that even mean?”

Overall, 54 percent in the poll said immigration is an important issue to them personally, a figure that’s remained steady over the past couple of years.

Republicans aren’t the only group whose views have shifted significantly. In August of 2010, just 39 percent of seniors favored a path to citizenship. Now, 55 percent do. Among those without a college degree, support has increased from 45 percent to 57 percent.

And 59 percent of whites now favor a way for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship, up from 44 percent in August 2010, and 41 percent in September 2009.

Overall, the poll found 35 percent strongly favored allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens over time, while 27 percent favored the idea somewhat. Just 35 percent of Americans opposed the approach, with 23 percent strongly opposed and 12 percent somewhat opposed. That compared with 48 percent opposed in 2010 and 50 percent in 2009.

The poll also found strong support for Obama’s decision, announced last summer, to shield as many as 800,000 immigrants from deportation with conditions. Those affected would have to be younger than 30, would have to have been brought to the U.S. before turning 16 and would have to fulfill certain other conditions including graduation from high school or serving in the military. Illegal immigrants covered by the order now can apply for work permits. The order bypassed Congress, which has not passed “DREAM Act” legislation to achieve some of the same goals for younger illegal immigrants.

Sixty-three percent of Americans favor that policy, while 20 percent oppose it and 17 percent are in between or unsure, the poll said. The policy is supported by 76 percent of Democrats, significantly more than among Republicans (48 percent) or independents (59 percent).

Cordel Welch, 41, of Los Angeles, was among those poll participants who believes illegal immigrants brought to the country as children should be treated differently from people who came here as adults.

“The ones that were brought here by their parents, they’re already here, they’re already established,” Welch said in an interview. “The adults should go through the process.”

Melissa Johnson, 40, of Porter, Texas, disagreed.

“I think there were generations of people that came over here legally, and just because your parents snuck you in or snuck in while pregnant with you doesn’t give you automatic citizenship,” she said. “I think they should send them all back home.”

The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted Jan. 10-14, 2013, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,004 adults nationwide. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points; the margin is larger for subgroups.

___

Online: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report

How the AP-GfK poll was conducted

By The Associated Press

The Associated Press-GfK poll on immigration was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications from Jan. 10-14. It is based on landline telephone and cellphone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted with 604 respondents on landline telephones and 400 on cellular telephones.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cell only and both types — by region.

No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 4.0 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

Topline results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com and http://surveys.ap.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans think jarring economic problems will erupt if lawmakers fail to increase the government’s borrowing limit. Yet they’re torn over how or even whether to raise it, leaning toward Republican demands that any boost be accompanied by spending cuts.

According to an Associated Press-GfK poll, 53 percent say that if the debt limit is not extended and the U.S. defaults, the country will face a major economic crisis. An additional 27 percent say such a crisis would be somewhat likely, while just 17 percent largely dismiss the prospects of such damage.

Separately, Republican officials said Wednesday that GOP lawmakers may seek a short-term extension of the debt limit, thus avoiding a default as early as next month by the U.S. Treasury while they try to negotiate spending cuts with President Barack Obama over the next few months. “All options are on the table as far as we’re concerned,” Rep. Paul Ryan said at a House Republicans’ retreat near Williamsburg, Va.

The poll’s findings echo many economists’ warnings that failure to raise the debt ceiling and the resulting, unprecedented federal default would risk wounding the world economy because many interest rates are pegged to the trustworthiness of the U.S. to pay its debts. Obama and many Republicans agree with that, though some GOP lawmakers eager to force Obama to accept spending cuts have downplayed a default’s impact.

When asked which political path to follow, 39 percent of poll respondents support the insistence by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that deep spending cuts be attached to any measure increasing the debt ceiling. That’s more than the 30 percent who back Obama’s demand that borrowing authority be raised quickly and not entwined with a bitter fight over trimming the budget.

An additional 21 percent oppose boosting the debt ceiling at all.

The survey was conducted as the two parties gird for a debt-limit battle that is likely to dominate the next two months in the capital. The fight is sure to underscore partisan differences over how to curb federal deficits that have surpassed $1 trillion for four straight years. Obama insists that besides spending cuts there should be more tax increases on the wealthy, which the GOP opposes.

While saying he will refuse to negotiate on the debt ceiling, Obama has said he will bargain separately on finding ways to reduce the annual federal deficit.

Despite the majority in the survey who fear severe economic problems if the debt limit is not raised, in a separate question only about 3 in 10 supported the general idea of increasing the ceiling. Four in 10 opposed it, with the rest expressing neutral feelings.

Democrats were about twice as likely as Republicans to support boosting the borrowing limit, while Republicans were likelier than Democrats by a similar margin to oppose an increase.

The government reached its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit Dec. 31 but has avoided default by using cash from pension and other funds it administers, money that will eventually be replaced. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said his ability to use such bookkeeping measures will be exhausted by early March or sooner.

Wayne Wiedrich, 46, an engineering inspector in Williston, N.D., said in a poll follow-up interview that he agrees that failure to boost the debt ceiling would risk severe problems.

“But on the other hand, it’s not doing the economy any good to raise the debt limit, print money and spend money we don’t have. One of these days China will come knocking on our door and say, ‘We own you,’” he said, referring to the country that holds more U.S. debt than any other nation.

Homemaker Sherry Giordano, 59, of Feasterville, Pa., disagreed.

“It has to be done,” she said of raising the borrowing limit. “We shouldn’t risk our reputation or spend money and time arguing about it. We have to pay our debts.”

The survey showed slight shifts in concerns about the economy and federal budget deficits. Eighty-six percent consider the economy a top issue, down 5 percentage points from last summer, while 76 percent have the same view on federal deficits, up 7 points since then.

Around one-third expect the economy to worsen over the next year, the highest figure in AP-GfK polling in nearly two years. Less than 1 in 4 think the economy is in good shape, a fairly stable number since last summer.

Despite the slight edge people give the GOP’s debt limit path, the survey showed Obama with some advantages as he begins his second term.

Fifty-four percent approve of how he is handling his job, a figure that has changed little over the past year. That is more than triple Congress’ 17 percent approval rating, which edged down 6 percentage points since early December, before the two sides’ “fiscal cliff” fight ended with Republicans largely accepting Obama’s demands to raise taxes on the country’s highest earners.

Democrats also have a slight 41 percent to 36 percent advantage over Republicans as the party more trusted to handle the economy.

Both Obama and Congress have fallen in the public’s esteem after their last battle over the debt ceiling.

In AP-GfK polling in June 2011, the president held a 52 percent approval rating. By August, it had declined to 46 percent after down-to-the-wire negotiations with Congress. Congressional approval ratings fell even further, from an already weak 21 percent in June to just 12 percent after the year’s debt limit standoff finally ended.

When it comes to finding savings to balance the budget, nearly half prefer cutting government services as the GOP wants, 3 in 10 would rather increase taxes and about 1 in 10 would do both. The percentage backing cuts in federal services has dropped 13 percentage points since the spring of 2011, while the number supporting tax cuts has changed little.

The poll also highlighted how public support dwindles when people are asked about specific cuts.

Given four ideas for reducing budget deficits, only one got majority support: charging top earners higher Medicare premiums, backed by 60 percent. That included roughly even proportions of Democrats and Republicans, and majorities of all income groups in the poll.

Only 30 percent back slowing the growth of annual Social Security benefit increases, which Obama agreed to accept in failed talks with Boehner on crafting a deficit-reduction compromise during the “fiscal cliff” fight. Just 35 percent support gradually raising the current Medicare eligibility age of 65, and 41 percent support defense cuts.

The poll involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,004 randomly chosen adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. It was conducted from Jan. 10 to 14 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications.

___

AP news survey specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Online: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

How the AP-GfK poll on debt limit and politics was conducted

By The Associated Press

The Associated Press-GfK poll on the debt limit and politics was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications from Jan. 10-14. It is based on landline telephone and cellphone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted with 604 respondents on landline telephones and 400 on cellular telephones.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cell only and both types — by region.

No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 4 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

Topline results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com and http://surveys.ap.org.

 WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly six in 10 Americans want stricter gun laws in the aftermath of last month’s deadly school shooting in Connecticut, with majorities favoring a nationwide ban on military-style, rapid-fire weapons and limits on gun violence depicted in video games, movies and TV shows, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

 A lopsided 84 percent of adults would like to see the establishment of a federal standard for background checks for people buying guns at gun shows, the poll showed.

 Three-quarters of Americans said they reacted to the Connecticut massacre with deep anger, while 54 percent said they felt deeply ashamed it could happen in the United States.

 President Barack Obama was set Wednesday to unveil a wide-ranging package of steps for reducing gun violence, expected to include a proposed ban on assault weapons, limits on the capacity of ammunition magazines and universal background checks for gun sales.

 Many of the more restrictive proposals under consideration, such as the assault-weapons ban, would face stiff congressional opposition, particularly among Republicans.

 By contrast, the general public appears receptive to stronger federal action following the Dec. 16 shooting spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults.

 Some 58 percent favor strengthening gun laws in the United States. Just 5 percent felt such laws should be loosened, while 35 percent said they should be left unchanged.

 In comparison, after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that 47 percent wanted stricter gun laws, 38 percent thought they should remain as is and 11 percent wanted to see them loosened.

 Caroline Konczey, 63, a retired Navy officer from Indio, Calif., is among those supporting a ban on military-style assault weapons. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want one,” she said. “What do you do with that, unless you’re a collector?”

 She suggested an underlying source of gun violence was the breakdown of the nuclear family and a lack of access to mental health care. “Until you strengthen the structure of the family that teaches respect for people, then this stuff goes down,” she said.

 Specifically, majorities in the new poll favored a nationwide ban on military-style, rapid-fire guns (55 percent) and limits on the amount and type of gun violence that can be portrayed in video games, movies or on television (54 percent). About half (51 percent) of those surveyed back a ban on the sale of magazines holding 10 or more bullets.

 At the same time 51 percent said that they believed laws limiting gun ownership infringe on the public’s Second Amendment right to possess and carry firearms. Among Republicans, 75 percent cited such infringement.

 Most Democrats (76 percent) and independents (60 percent) back stricter gun laws, while a majority of Republicans (53 percent) want gun laws left alone.

 There is also a gender gap. Gun control is a more important issue for women, with 68 percent saying it was very or extremely important to them, than for men (57 percent). And women are more likely to back stricter gun laws: 67 percent favor them, compared with 49 percent of men.

 ”Military-style weapons should be military guns, not John Q. Public guns,” said Ellen Huffman, 55, of Huntersville, N.C., who supports a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

 Huffman said early detection of mental health problems would go a long way to curbing gun violence. If such problems are caught early enough “you won’t have people killing people,” she said.

 Among gun owners, just 40 percent back a ban on the sale of military-type, rapid-fire guns, and 37 percent favor a ban on high-capacity magazines, while 66 percent of non-gun owners would ban military-style weapons and 60 percent would ban high-capacity magazines.

However, 80 percent of gun owners do support federal standards for gun-show background checks, as do 87 percent of non-gun owners.

 Gun owners lean more Republican than the overall public. Fifty-five percent of them are Republicans, compared with 30 percent who are Democrats.

 Overall, 3 in 10 said the shootings caused them to wonder whether you could really be safe anywhere these days, up slightly from 25 percent after Virginia Tech, with parents more apt to react with deep worries about safety issues than non-parents.

 And residents of the Northeast were much more likely than those in other regions to say the events in Newtown made them feel strongly that there may be too many guns in this country — 46 percent, vs. 35 percent reacting that way in the South, 30 percent in the West and 28 percent in the Midwest.

 Max Lude, 70, a retired teacher from West Frankfort, Ill., said limiting magazines to 10 rounds “is probably the smartest thing they can do” to reduce mass tragedies. Mandatory background checks also would help, as would mandatory prison sentences for those convicted of gun grimes, said Lude, a National Rifle Association member and hunter-safety instructor.

 ”It’s a complicated problem with a complicated solution,” he said. “It’s not just a one-time, quick-fix deal.”

 The gun control debate heated up after Adam Lanza, 20, shot his way into the Newtown school on Dec. 14 and killed 26 people before committing suicide. Lanza also killed his mother at her home before the shooting spree. His mother kept guns at the home she shared with her son.

 The poll of 1,004 adults was conducted by telephone Jan. 10-14, 2013. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

 ___

Associated Press writer Matthew Daly and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

 ___

Online: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

 How the AP-GfK poll on gun control was conducted

 The Associated Press-GfK poll on gun control was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications from Jan. 10-14. It is based on landline telephone and cellphone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted with 604 respondents on landline telephones and 400 on cellular telephones.

 Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

 Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

 As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cell only and both types — by region.

 No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 4.0 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

 There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

 Topline results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com and http://surveys.ap.org.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com .