The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll provides an interesting insight into the mood of the country, while President Obama’s approval number hit an all time low of 40 percent for this poll, Congress’s approval remained significantly lower. While the numbers for President Obama are dreadful, I want to focus on the country’s mood.

Let’s start with this local news broadcast in Massachusetts from WWLP-22:

Other numbers from the poll:

40 percent say someone in their household lost a job in the past five years;

27 percent say they have more than $5,000 in student-loan debt for either themselves or their children;

20 percent have more than $2,000 in credit card debt they are unable to pay off month to month;

17 percent say they have a parent or a child over 21 years old living with them for financial or health reasons.

49 percent believe the country is still in a recession

23 percent think the country’s problems stem from long term problems with the economy.

71 percent of Americans blame the country’s economic problems on the inability of elected officials in Washington to get things done to improve the economy

As for the 57 percent who claim something upsets them enough to carry a protest sign for the day, NBC provided these word clouds as to what issues their sign would address:

America may be fed up, but we remain divided as to why we are fed up. From the word clouds, we can determine the one issue both Republicans and Democrats most agree on is we must focus on our own country.

At least there’s one issue both sides can unite over.

I hope we can find more.

Because if we don’t, I fear we are in for some very volatile times.