A poll by the conservative Chosun Ilbo newspaper found that 90.5 percent of the respondents saw the growing profit disparity between big and small businesses as a serious problem.

The conglomerates, or chaebols, provide the bulk of the country’s exports which surged to a record level last month. But the small and medium-sized companies, which employ around 70 percent of the workforce, have fared comparatively poorly.

A majority of respondents in the survey said the government should focus more on closing the income gap, rather than on export-led growth. It also showed more than 80 percent of the 700 respondents felt left behind in the growth accomplished by Asia’s fourth largest economy.

Lee and his ruling conservatives have come under fire this year over a surge in consumer prices, the growing wage divide and unemployment, forcing his administration to switch policy priorities to fighting inflation from boosting growth.

Lee’s popularity has nearly halved in the past year and critics say he is becoming a lame duck president, stymying policy-making. Lee’s five-year term ends in early 2103.

Polls also show the ruling Grand National Party risks losing its strong majority in next April’s parliamentary election.

“The public sentiment is just not very favorable for the government,” Kyunghee University professor Kwon Young-joon said.

“All I can say is that the government has always been too late and too weak in its response to inflation.”

Lee has been criticized for failing to deliver on his pledge to bring prices under control, barely a year after he was accredited for pulling the economy out of the global downturn faster than its peers.

Lee and his party will try to use a new session of parliament in August to push through populist bills including subsidies for college tuition and more welfare benefits for the working poor in a bid to win back support.

But such a populist approach has been under fire as well.

The government last week proposed setting up state-run petrol stations to undercut oil companies as pump prices have surged. South Korea is also considering selling shares in the privatization of Incheon International Airport to low-income earners at a steep discount.

Lee’s problems have been compounded by last week’s floods and landslides which killed nearly 70 people, and raised fears of further food price hikes.

Consumer price inflation data released on Monday showed fresh food prices rising by 9 percent in July from a year ago, nearly double the rate seen in June and driving the overall price increase to the highest rate since October 2008.