Barack Obama may be the president of the United States during the worst economic crisis in recent history, but most Americans don’t blame him, a new poll shows.

When asked who’s responsible for the current economic mess, an overwhelming eight in 10 people point to banks, financial institutions and corporations, according to the Washington Post/ABC News poll published Tuesday.

Seven in 10 respondents said that consumers took on too much debt and that the Bush administration was too lax with borrowing regulations, the poll revealed.   Only about one in four people said that the Obama administration was not doing enough to turn the crisis around. When it comes to the overall job that Obama is doing as president, two in three people said they approve, while slightly fewer – 60 percent – say they are satisfied with the way he is handling the economy.

Still the 64 percent who say they are confident Obama's policies will improve the economy, are 8 percentage points fewer than those who said so just before he took office in January. Representing the highest percentage in five years, 42 percent say they believe the country is now heading in the right direction. In December, an astounding 90 percent said President Bush was leading the nation in the wrong direction.