Obama: Americans are ‘not better off’ today than they were four years ago

President Obama bluntly conceded the uphill battle he faces in winning re-election next year, acknowledging Monday that the American people are "not better off" today than they were four years ago.

"They're not better off than they were before Lehman's collapse, before the financial crisis, before this extraordinary recession that we're going through," Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in an interview that streamed on Yahoo.com. "I think that what we've seen is that we've been able to make steady progress to stabilize the economy, but the unemployment rate is still way too high."

Asked if he's the "underdog" heading into 2012, the president had a quick response. "Absolutely," Obama declared. "I'm used to being the underdog. But at the end of the day, people are going to ask, 'Who's got a vision?'"

You can watch Obama's comments after the jump:

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 55 percent of the country believes the president won't be re-elected in 2012.