WASHINGTON — A nearly 2-1 majority of voters think that President Obama inherited, rather than caused, today’s slumping economy, and more Americans trust him to create jobs than they do the Republicans in Congress, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

Half of U.S. adults think that Obama’s push to create jobs will do more good than harm, while 40 percent say the opposite. The president has spent the fall prodding Congress to pass his $447 billion job-creation package, and he signed legislation Monday to give tax credits to businesses that hire unemployed veterans.

The Nov. 8-10 survey of 1,026 adults, including 872 registered voters, found a populace that is still glum about the nation’s economic outlook: Nearly three out of four think the country is in a recession – although the official scorekeeper of these things, the National Bureau of Economic Research, says the recession ended in 2009 – and 53 percent think that “the worst is yet to come,” while 41 percent think the worst is behind us.

The number who think the country is in a recession had declined slightly since July, and those who think that the worst is “yet to come” declined significantly since August, when 68 percent of Americans said that was what they thought.

“We’re generally seeing some minor or slight improvement in some of the measures,” Marist poll director Lee Miringoff said. “It’s no big flip, no big turnaround, but perhaps an inkling that things are starting to improve.”

The poll found that 60 percent of registered voters think that the president inherited the current economic conditions – a finding that has held fairly steady for two years – while 32 percent blame his policies.

The poll’s error margin is plus or minus 3 percentage points overall, and 3.5 percentage points for registered voters.