Poll: Country split on how things are going

As President Barack Obama begins his second term in the White House, a new national poll indicates Americans are divided on how things are going in the country.

Forty-nine percent of people questioned in a CNN/ORC International survey released Sunday say things are going very or fairly well in the country, with 51% saying things are going pretty or very badly.

The 49% figure is up six points from last November and it's more than double the 21% who said the country was in good shape at the time of Obama's first inauguration in January 2009.

"That's the good news," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The bad news is that no president has faced a public in this sour a mood at the start of his second term since the question was first asked nearly 40 years ago. More than six in ten said the country was doing well when Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan had their second inaugurations, with 58% feeling that way when President George W. Bush started his second term in 2005."

The poll was conducted for CNN by ORC International on Jan. 14-15, with 814 adults nationwide questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.