US President George W. Bush's approval rating dropped to 43 percent in a new poll released on Thursday, down from 46 percent in February and 50 percent in January when he began his second four-year term.

The US public were critical of Bush's job performance in many policy areas, but negative opinions of his handling of the economy and Iraq were doing the most damage to his overall approval rating, according to the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Only 35 percent of those surveyed approved of the president's handling of the economy, down from 43 percent in February and 45 percent in January. On the Iraq issue, Bush's approval rating slipped from 45 percent in January to 40 percent in February, and 37 percent currently.

Positive opinions of his handling of foreign policy fell 10 percentage points, to 38 percent, and his approval ratings on energy and social security stood at 31 percent and 29 percent respectively.

Fifty-seven percent approved of Bush's job performance on handling terrorist threats, the only issue on which the president got positive marks from a majority of the public.

The survey was conducted May 11-15 among 1,502 Americans, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Source: Xinhua