San Francisco, July 31 (DPA) Former action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is finding it much harder to be a hero in real life than in the movies. The Austrian-born California governor has dropped to an all-time low in approval ratings as he struggles to lead the largest US state through a severe economic crisis.

The poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows just 28 percent of Californians approve of Schwarzenegger's job performance. That's the lowest for any California governor since August 2003, when former governor Gray Davis was forced into a snap recall election.

Only 14 percent of those polled said the state was headed in the right direction, and three out of every four residents said they expected bad financial conditions over the next year, according to the poll.

The poll was taken after Schwarzenegger Tuesday signed a new spending plan that closes the state's $26-billion deficit with severe spending cuts on child welfare programmes, health care for the elderly and the poor, and state parks.