Last Call For The Obamaconomy

After years of income gains going only to the wealthiest Americans, 2015 finally saw the rest of the economy turn the corner as the country recorded its first middle class gains since 2007 and a sharp drop in the nation's poverty rate.

The Census Bureau released new numbers on Tuesday showing that, after a brutal economic recession and years of stagnation, real median household incomes rose from $53,718 in 2014 to $56,516 last year. That's a 5.2 percent rise — the first statistically significant increase since 2007. 

But, as NPR's Pam Fessler notes, "the median household income was still lower than it was in 2007." 

The official poverty rate decreased to 13.5 percent for last year, a drop of 1.2 percentage points. That represents 3.5 million people who are no longer in poverty and is the largest annual percentage point drop since 1999, the Census Bureau says. 

The supplemental poverty measure — an alternate way of gauging poverty, which takes more factors into account — also dropped significantly, falling by 1 percentage point to 14.3 percent. 

"Poverty dropped for whites, blacks and Hispanics, as well as for children and seniors," Pam reports. 

The number of people with health insurance also rose. More than 90 percent of Americans are covered by health insurance — an increase of 1.3 percentage points since 2014, and growth of 4.3 percentage points since the major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the Bureau says. 

Last year, 29 million people did not have health insurance, representing 9.1 percent of the population. 

Across the board, the Census Bureau's 2015 numbers show significant signs of progress and reflect a recovering economy. 

The 5.2 percent increase in median household income, in particular, was impressive — "one of the largest year-to-year increases that we've ever had," Trudi Renwick of the Census Bureau said. 

Income rose in every region of the country, for every age group of household head, with statistically significant increases for almost every racial group.

But there was one group that didn't share in the country's growth:

But as The New York Times' Nate Cohn points out, rural America didn't experience the same growth as the rest of the country. The median income for people living outside of metropolitan areas dropped 2 percent, to $44,657.

Economic anxiety in the heartland!

Seriously, America's cities are booming.  Red state farm country, not so much.  But hey, guess what? They get to vote too, and they've put their money on Trump.  The ultimate NYC city slicker.

That makes sense, right?