With Election Day just over a year away, a deep sense of economic anxiety and doubt about the future hangs over the nation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with Americans' distrust of government at its highest level ever.

The combustible climate helps explain the volatility of the presidential race and has provided an opening for protest movements like Occupy Wall Street, to highlight grievances about banks, income inequality and a sense that the poor and middle class have been disenfranchised. Almost half of the public thinks the sentiment at the root of the Occupy movement generally reflects the views of most Americans.

With nearly all Americans remaining fearful that the economy is stagnating or deteriorating further, two-thirds of the public said that wealth should be distributed more evenly in the country. Seven in 10 Americans think the policies of congressional Republicans favor the rich. Two-thirds object to tax cuts for corporations and a similar number prefer increasing income taxes on millionaires.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released a new study concluding that income distribution had become much more uneven in the past three decades, a report that could figure prominently in the battle over how to revive the economy and rein in the federal debt.

The poll findings underscore a dissatisfaction and restlessness heading into the election season that has been highlighted through competing voices from the Occupy Wall Street and tea party movements, a broad anti-Washington sentiment and the cross-currents inside both parties about the best way forward.

Not only do 89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, but 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress - warnings for Democrats and Republicans alike.

Republican voters remain unenthused about their options to challenge President Barack Obama next year, as the competition intensifies among Mitt Romney, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and other contenders. The uncertainty has provided an opening for Herman Cain, who was viewed more enthusiastically by Republican primary voters than were other Republican candidates.

The approval rating for Obama, 46 percent, appears to be elevated by positions he has taken on foreign affairs. Sixty percent of those questioned said they approve of his handling of Iraq, a question added to the poll following his announcement last Friday that U.S. troops would come home by the end of the year.

But the president, whose disapproval rating is also 46 percent, faces mixed signals from the public about his latest job-creation proposals. While the poll found substantial support for the plan's individual components, more than half of the public say he lacks a clear plan for creating jobs, despite his extensive travels around the country over the past six weeks selling his proposals.

With the nation's unemployment rate at 9.1 percent, income inequality remains a palpable issue for Americans. Nearly nine in 10 Democrats, two-thirds of independents and just over one-third of all Republicans say that the distribution of wealth in the country should be more equitable, even as a majority of Republicans said they think it is fair.

The poll showed the depth of malaise in the air as the president intensifies his re-election campaign and Republican candidates implore voters to give them a look.

"Everything is for the wealthy," said Jo Waters, 87, a Democrat and a retired hospital administrator from Pleasanton, Calif. "This used to be a lovely country, but everything is sliding."

Congressional Republicans are viewed even worse than the president, with 71 percent of the public saying the party does not have a clear plan for creating jobs. And support for several other Republican proposals is more tepid than for Obama's initiatives to lift the economy.

Only about a quarter of the public said that lowering taxes on large corporations or repealing the entire national health care law was a good idea. But half of the public favors reducing or repealing regulations on businesses in the United States.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted from last Wednesday through Monday with 1,650 adults, of whom 1,475 were registered to vote. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points.

A remarkable sense of pessimism and skepticism was apparent in question after question in the survey, which found that congressional approval has reached a new low at 9 percent. The disapproval toward Congress has risen 22 percentage points since the beginning of the year when Republicans took control of the House.

"Probably the government in Washington could be trusted at one time but now it seems like it's all a game of who wins rather than what's best for the people," said Paulette Delgadillo, 52, a self-employed interior decorator from Tempe, Ariz.