The support rate for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's cabinet dropped by 8 percentage points to 33 percent from a month earlier, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported Monday, citing its latest telephone survey.

According to the poll conducted over the weekend, the disapproval rating for the cabinet, however, rose by 6 percentage points to 56 percent from 50 percent registered at the previous poll carried out on March 5-7.

The figure marks the first time the approval rating for the cabinet in the paper's polls has fallen below the 40 percent line since Prime Minister Hatoyama took office last September.

The daily surveyed 1,753 households with eligible voters, of which 1,096, or 63 percent gave valid answers.

Similarly, Kyodo News reported Sunday that the support rate for the cabinet saw a 3.3 percentage-point fall to 33.0 percent.

The poll conducted by the news agency also showed that the disapproval rating increased 4.4 points to 53.3 percent, topping the 50 percent mark for the first time since its launch last September.