( CNN ) -- African-Americans really like President Obama , but more and more feel that race relations have not gotten better since he took office , a new national poll found . Obama 's crowd in Chicago on Election Night , when fewer blacks thought race relations were a serious problem . Ninety-six percent of African-Americans approve of how Obama is handling his presidency , according to a CNN/Essence Magazine/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Thursday . During the 2008 election , 38 percent of blacks surveyed thought racial discrimination was a serious problem . In the new survey , 55 percent of blacks surveyed believed it was a serious problem , which is about the same level as it was in 2000 . The poll was conducted May 16-18 , in telephone interviews with 505 African-Americans and 501 whites . Blacks and whites had differing opinions of Obama 's performance . More than 60 percent of blacks felt that Obama met their expectations , while 46 percent of whites did . See the CNN/ESSENCE poll results » . Thirty percent of blacks said Obama exceeded their expectations , compared with 16 percent of whites . Six percent of blacks said Obama did not meet expectations , compared with 35 percent of whites . Both blacks and whites gave similar answers to a survey question about whether race relations will always be a problem in the United States . Forty-five percent of blacks answered yes , while 42 percent of whites said yes . Fifty percent of blacks said no , while 56 percent of whites said no . Sound off : Have race relations improved ? The poll had a sampling error on these questions of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points .
African-Americans strongly approve of Obama and his performance , poll finds . Score: 6 Smaller percentage of whites than blacks say Obama has met their expectations . About half of both whites and blacks think race relations will improve .