Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama’s approval rating declined as a growing number of Americans said the Democratic president and Republican leaders aren’t working together on important issues.

In a poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 63 percent of Americans said they thought the two sides weren’t working together. While 29 percent of respondents said Republicans are most to blame for the lack of cooperation, 17 percent cited Obama, up from 7 percent in February, Pew said.

Obama’s job-approval rating fell 3 percentage points, to 51 percent from 54 percent in July, within the survey’s error margin of plus-or-minus 2.5 percentage points. His rating stood at 61 percent in June.

Independents were almost evenly divided, with 45 percent saying they approved of Obama’s performance and 43 percent saying they disapproved. In June, independents approved of Obama’s job performance by almost a 2-to-1 margin.

Approval ratings for the Democratic Party also fell, with 49 percent of Americans saying they viewed the party favorably. That’s down 10 percentage points from April, Washington-based Pew reported. Democrats had a 62 percent favorable rating just before Obama’s inauguration in January. The 40 percent approval rating for the Republican Party has held steady all year.

Health Care

On health care, Republicans are paying more attention to the debate over reform, according to the poll. While almost half of the public said they have heard a lot about the legislation, 61 percent of Republicans put themselves in that category, besting other groups by 10 or more percentage points.

“Reactions are highly partisan” on the issue, Pew editor Carroll Doherty said in an interview. Conservative Republicans have been more vocal because the opposition tends to get mobilized “a little bit easier,” Doherty said.

“The mere fact that the people who are hearing the most about this” are conservative Republicans is a measure of “engagement and intensity,” Doherty said. “The Democrats do seem less intense.”

About four in 10 Republicans said they would be angry if current health-care proposals were enacted, while 13 percent of Democrats would be angry if the legislation pushed by Obama and pending in Congress failed. Thirty-eight percent of Republicans say they would be very happy if the bills failed, while 27 percent of Democrats would feel the same way if the bills succeed.

On the economy, 90 percent of respondents rated economic conditions as poor or “only fair,” almost unchanged from a Pew poll in June.

Pew’s poll of 2,010 adults nationwide from Aug. 11-17 was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

To contact the reporter on this story: Juliann Neher in Washington at jneher@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 19, 2009 18:32 EDT