Author: Tami Luhby

(CNNMoney) — NEW YORK — Millions of people are signing up for Obamacare for next year, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to repeal it as soon as he takes office next month.

Just over 4 million people have selected policies for 2017 through the federal exchange, healthcare.gov, as of Dec. 10, according to data released Wednesday by the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s an increase of more than 250,000 from last year.

More than 1.1 million new people have signed up for 2017, while 2.9 million people are renewing their coverage. Consumers aren’t officially enrolled until they pay their first month’s premium.

The pace is quickening this week. Those who want coverage to start on Jan. 1 must sign up by Thursday. More than 700,000 people signed up on Monday and Tuesday, the two biggest days since open enrollment started on Nov. 1.

States that run their own exchanges are also seeing a boost in interest. More than 153,000 new consumers have signed up on California’s exchange, including 25,000 on Monday and Tuesday. That’s in addition to the 1.2 million current Golden State customers who’ve renewed their plans. The state extended its deadline to Dec. 17 for those who want coverage to begin New Year’s Day.

“This strong demand shows that Californians are using the competitive marketplace that Covered California provides,” said Peter Lee, executive director of the state’s exchange.

The Obama administration is encouraging people to sign up to show Trump and the Republicans how vital Obamacare is to Americans. They’ve created the hashtag #CoverageMatters to let enrollees share how health care reform has benefited them.

The surge in sign-ups comes as Republicans prepare to repeal Obamacare in coming weeks. However, it’s expected that they will delay putting an actual end to the law for two or three years while they come up with a replacement plan.

While insurers are locked into providing coverage next year, the delay may prompt some to rethink their involvement in 2018.

“A repeal and delay is a repeal and recipe for collapse,” Health Secretary Sylvia Burwell told CNN’s MJ Lee Wednesday. “Insurance companies have to make their decisions in the first half of the year — whether or not they’re going to be in the marketplace and what prices they’re going to charge. With that level of uncertainty, we’ve seen studies and more and more analysis is coming out, that what insurance companies will do — many of them — will make the choice to be out of the marketplace or else to raise their prices dramatically.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — It’s easier to find a good job. I’m making more money. I’m more optimistic about the future.

That’s how many Americans feel about their personal financial situations since President Obama took office eight years ago.

Voters are certainly hearing a lot about the economy in this presidential election, though it can seem like we are living in two different Americas depending on which candidate is talking.

Regardless of what’s said on the campaign trail, though, many Americans report they are feeling flusher than they did several years ago.

Some 42% of Americans say now is a good time to find a quality job, according to an October Gallup poll. This is a vast improvement from 2011, when it hit a low of 8%. The measure is now just below where it was in the boom times of 2007.

These sentiments are in line with an upward swing in the job market — unemployment fell to 4.9% in October, compared to 7.8% when President Obama took office in January, 2009. A total of 10.9 million jobs have been created during his tenure.

So while the economy still ranks as voters’ top concern, unemployment has fallen to 7th place, with just 6% citing it as the nation’s number one problem, down from a high of 39% in the fall of 2011.

Several Gallup reports point to Americans’ improving attitudes about their finances and the economy. Consumer confidence, investor optimism and small business owner confidence have all improved since Obama took office in 2008, said Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor-in-chief.

“Americans are overwhelmingly better off than they were eight years ago,” Newport said. “There’s no question about it.”

Of course, the nation was in the midst of a major recession when people went to the polls in 2008, and it was still healing during the 2012 election. Most of Gallup’s measures have climbed since then, though they have leveled over the past year or two, Newport said.

The economic recovery has put many Americans in a better place. More than two-thirds say they are making more than they were five years ago and only 20% say they are making less, according to an August poll from Gallup.

In 2013, only 58% said they were earning more, and 28% said they were bringing home less.

Median household income had remained fairly flat until 2015, when it jumped 5.2% to $56,516. It marked the first increase in median income since 2007, the year before the Great Recession started.

Workers are also pretty pleased with their jobs, with few saying they feel underemployed. Some 70% said their job is a good match for their skills and training, while only 23% said their position doesn’t take advantage of their abilities and knowledge.

More Americans are reporting that they are better off now than they were a year ago, compared to those who felt this way in 2013, according to the New York Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Expectations. More also have a positive attitude about the coming year.

The stock market has also soared in recent years, with the S&P 500 Index now above 2100, after plummeting to 735 in February 2009. This has revived many Americans’ fortunes.

Take Ken Dukes, 57. In 2008 and 2009, the freelance computer programmer saw his investments shrink by 50%. But he didn’t panic and sell. Instead, he added to his portfolio, which he says has more than doubled since then.

The strong market recovery allowed the Kissimmee, Florida, resident to retire two years ago. He now devotes himself to teaching Sunday school and hobbies, such as programming video games.

“It’s nice that my investments and retirement savings are doing well enough so I can retire and do the things I want to do,” Dukes said.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — It’s about time.

After years of watching their incomes go nowhere, America’s middle class finally got a big raise last year.

Median household income rose to $56,516 in 2015, up 5.2% from a year earlier, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau Tuesday. It marks the first increase in median income since 2007, the year before the Great Recession started.

Also, the poverty rate ticked down to 13.5% in 2015, from 14.8% a year earlier.

The data is sure to become a talking point in the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump has repeatedly hammered home that income is $4,000 lower than it was in 2000. (That’s true if you are comparing it to 2014 data, which had been the most recent available. But Trump often referenced it as current figures, which makes it false.)

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, will likely use the uptick to show that the economy is recovering.

Median income: The jump in median income was one of the largest annual increases Census has recorded. The growth was also widespread, with geographic regions and races (except for Asians) seeing increases.

Behind the pay hike is the big increase in employment, Census officials said. Some 3.3 million more Americans were working full-time, year-round, pushing up median income. Some 1.4 million more men and 1 million more women had jobs last year.

The annual unemployment rate fell to 5.3% in 2015, compared to 6.2% the prior year.

The jump shows that the economy is improving, said Sheldon Danziger, president of the Russell Sage Foundation, a research group focusing on social issues.

Measures that “encourage increased employment, increased wages and increased health are beginning to pay off and finally matter,” said Danziger, citing minimum wage increases and Medicaid expansion as examples.

The lowest-income Americans saw their incomes rise the most, while the Top 10% has the weakest growth.

Still, the nation hasn’t fully healed.

Income remains 1.6% lower than it was in 2000, when it hit $57,790, and 2.4% below the 1999 peak at $57,909. Median earnings for men working full-time are still lower than they were in the 1970s, Danziger said.

Women have fared better. Their earnings are up 7.8% since 2000, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Men’s are down 0.1% over the same period.

Income inequality, however, remained at the same level as 2014. It has increased 5.5% since 1993.

Poverty: The poverty rate is the lowest it’s been since 2008, when it was 13.2%. Some 43.1 million Americans were in poverty last year, 3.5 million less than in 2014.

The last time the poverty rate went down more than a percentage point was in the late 1960s, Danziger said. All age groups — children, adults and senior citizens — saw their share drop.

While the poverty rate fell for all races, it remains high among people of color. Some 24.1% of blacks and 21.4% of Hispanics were in poverty last year, while only 9.1% of non-Hispanic whites were.

The poverty threshold for two adults and two children was just over $24,000 last year.

Trump also references the poverty rate to show that Americans have suffered under President Obama. The rate was at 12.5% in 2007, before the Great Recession hit. It jumped to 15.1% in 2010 and has slowly drifted downward since.

The Census Bureau also released an alternate poverty measure that takes into account various government benefits and expenses not captured by the official poverty rate. The so-called Supplemental Poverty Measure showed 14.3% of Americans were in poverty in 2015, compared to 15.3% a year earlier.

The supplemental measure showed that non-cash public assistance, such as food stamps, housing vouchers and refundable tax credits, helped lift many Americans out of poverty. However, it also takes into account work-related costs such as transportation and child care, as well as medical and tax expenses, which all together drove more people into poverty.

Social Security kept 26.6 million people out of poverty in 2015, while food stamps lifted 4.6 million people above the poverty line, the Economic Policy Institute noted.

Health insurance: The uninsured rate fell to 9.1% in 2015, according to the Census Bureau. That’s down from 10.4% the year before, when the Obamacare exchanges and Medicaid expansion began. Some 29 million were without insurance last year, compared to 33 million in 2014.

The uninsured rate has dropped as millions of Americans gained coverage under Obamacare.

More recent government data found that the uninsured rate fell to 8.6% in the first quarter of this year. Some 27.3 million people lacked health coverage, according to the National Health Interview Survey, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The Great Recession hit all Americans hard, but only whites have seen their wealth rise during the recent recovery.

And that’s widening the already massive wealth gap between whites and other racial and ethnic groups to near record levels.

White households’ median wealth ticked up to $141,900 in 2013, up 2.4% from three years earlier, according to a Pew Research Center report released Friday.

Net worth for black households dropped by a third during that time to $11,000. Hispanic families experienced a 14% decline in wealth to $13,700.

Whites have 13 times the net worth of blacks, the largest wealth gap that’s existed since George H.W. Bush was president in 1989. The ratio of net worth between whites and Hispanics now stands at more than 10, the widest it has been since 2001.

Much of the focus in recent years has been the growth in income inequality, with the Top 1% capturing most of the post-Recession gains. But wealth inequality is also troubling.

There are several reasons for the growing gap, says Pew, citing Federal Reserve Bank data.

Minority households’ median income fell 9% between 2010 and 2013, compared to a drop of only 1% for whites. So minority households may not have been able to sock away as much or may have had to use more of their savings to cover expenses.

Also, the financial markets have rebounded much more than housing in recent years. Since whites are more likely to own stocks, they have seen a bigger wealth boost.

Real estate, on the other hand, makes up a big chunk of blacks’ and Hispanics’ net worth. But homeownership declined faster among minorities than whites between 2010 and 2013.

Only 47.4% of minorities were homeowners in last year. But 73.9% of whites owned homes.

It takes some digging to find these racial and ethnic disparities, which are masked when looking at the nation’s overall median wealth. For all households, median wealth slipped slightly to $82,300 last year, down only 1.1%.