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Barack Obama leaves office Friday with 6 in 10 Americans approving of his job performance, capping a steady rise that vaults him above the average final mark for modern presidents, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds.

Obama's high-note finish comes with plenty of dissonance, including persistent pessimism about the nation's direction and deep divisions after Donald Trump's victory in last year's presidential race after campaigning strongly against Obama's policies.

Yet Americans grew significantly more positive about Obama's presidency through the acidic 2016 campaign asperceptions of the economy improved. The president'sapproval ratings were underwater in July 2015, when 45 percent approved and 50 percent disapproved of his performance. But hisoverall approval grew to a steady 50 percent by January 2016, and rose again to 56 percent in June, never falling below the mid-50s through the fall campaign.

The latest Post-ABC poll shows Obama hitting 60 percent approval, with 38 percent disapproving his highest mark since June ofhis first year in office, when 65 percent approved of him. Thelatest pollfinds 61 percent approve of Obama's handling of the economy, whilea smaller 53 percent approvehow he has handled the threat of terrorism and 52 percentrate him positively for handling health care.

Partisanship was the principal factor in ratings of Obama throughout his presidency. Republicans soured on his performance by his second month in office, and Democrats widely approved throughout his two terms. Independents are largely responsible for Obama's strong finish, as approval climbed from 44 percent at the start of 2016 to 61 percent in the latest poll.

Another factor that may have boosted Obama: the improvement in ratings of the national economy.

Only 5 percent of Americans said the economy was excellent or good when Obama took the oath of office, and this number did not grow beyond 20 percent during his first term. But in the last few years, the share of Americans with positive ratings of the economy has more than doubled to 51 percent in this month's survey, the highest level tracked by Post-ABC polls during his tenure. Very few say the economy is in excellent condition (6 percent), and nearly half rate it negatively. But the share of people saying the economy is poor has dropped from 62 percent in early 2009 to 14 percent today.

How Obama's ratings stack up historically

Obama's final job approval mark is well above the 50 percent average for presidents from Franklin Roosevelt onward, and nearly twice as high as the 33 percent approval of his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, as he left office in 2009.

Roosevelt, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan all held higher approval marks in final polls while in office than Obama does today. Dwight Eisenhower also had a slightly more positive image than Obama, with disapproval 10 points lower than Obama's despite trailing the current president by one point in positive marks. Besides Bush, Obama's final rating is clearly higher than those of George H.W. Bush, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman and Richard Nixon.

Obama's closest analog is Gerald Ford, whose 53-32 approve-disapprove rating (+21) closely resembles Obama's +22 margin of approval and disapproval.

The Post-ABC poll asked respondents to predict how history will judge Obama in the long run, and 51 percent said they think Obama will go down in history as an outstanding or above-average president. One-quarter said he will be remembered as average, while another 25 percent said he will rank as below average or poor. By comparison, a similar 47 percent thought Clinton would be remembered as above average, while 36 percent said this of George H.W. Bush and 16 percent said the same of George W. Bush.

Little satisfaction with nation's direction

Americans have been pessimistic about the country's future for much of the past four decades, and Obama's hope-centered campaign aimed to counterthis long-running pessimism.

The presidentdid appear to inspire optimism during his first year, with as many as 50 percent saying the country was headed in the right direction, up from single digits the previous fall among registered voters and the highest level since 2003. But pessimism clawed back during the next two years, peaking after the Standard & Poor's credit downgrade when 77 percent said the country was on the wrong track.

Optimism among Democrats helped boost the right direction ratings into the low 40s during Obama's reelection campaign, but they have yet to reach that level again. Today, only 29 percent say the country is headed in the right direction, while 63 percent see it as on the wrong track.

One major shift that has already occurred since Trump's presidential victory is a flip in the partisan divide on this question. Today, Republicans are 26 points more likely than Democrats to say the country is headed in the right direction (45 percent vs. 19 percent). Last July, Democrats were 37 points more likely to express optimism about the country's direction (45 percent vs. 8 percent).

If Obama's presidency is any guide, that split will grow even bigger once Trump takes office.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Jan. 12-15, 2017, among a random national sample of 1,005 adults, including landline and cellphone respondents. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

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President Obama is leaving office on a very high note - Washington Post

New York Times

Obama Understood the Power of Art. And He Wanted You to Get It, Too. New York Times Anyone inclined to find joy when a president's taste collides with yours had a lot to choose from with Barack Obama. There was the time he dropped by the Los Angeles garage where the comedian Marc Maron records his podcast or when he sat between the ...

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Obama Understood the Power of Art. And He Wanted You to Get It, Too. - New York Times

Those eight years saw the nation grapple with the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. The country's response to that crisis helped reshape the economy and the makeup of the political system a few times over. And for every day of those eight years, the nation was at war -- on multiple fronts, against multiple groups for multiple purposes.

All of these momentous changes during Obama's presidency had very real effects on people across the country and the globe. And for each of these real-world impacts, there is a number.

The recession cost many people their livelihood. The following years saw many of those same people gain it back. While part of the drop in unemployment came from people leaving the workforce, enough people have jobs now that, statistically speaking, employment has recovered from the darkest days of the economic crisis.

Due in part to a revolution in domestic fossil fuels and massive oil production overseas, oil and gas have been pretty cheap for some of Obama's presidency.

Here's what the situation looks like.

Following years of upward climb and a rally after President-elect Donald Trump's electoral victory, stocks are near record highs.

Here's stock market performance as of January 3, 2017:

Obama's election coincided with Democratic victories across the nation and the strong 2008 showing built on the party's successes in 2006. But as the years went on, the situation virtually reversed itself. Obama will exit office with the Republican Party resurgent on the state and federal levels.

Deaths from opioid-related overdose deaths have been on the rise. More people are dying from overdoses on heroin and prescription pain medicine like oxycodone and fentanyl.

States with legal marijuana or cannabis products have blossomed under Obama. When he took office, recreational marijuana wasn't legal in any state.

The Affordable Care Act set aside funding for states to expand Medicaid -- a government health care program for the poorest Americans. But the process became something of a tussle with state governments and many of their Republican leaders. By the end of Obama's presidency, only the slim majority of states had opted to expand Medicaid.

As the economy recovered and the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, reformed the health care market, more people had health insurance coverage.

Here's the total percentage of people without insurance, according to the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey:

By the end of Obama's presidency, government debt had nearly doubled to about $20 trillion.

Trump said during his campaign that he'd create a special force to deport undocumented immigrants. Although Obama criticized Trump's immigration proposals, he detained and deported millions of men, women and children. Obama's administration deported the people -- 434,015 -- in 2013.

The US has grown more unequal over the past few decades, including the past eight years.

One commonly cited measure is the Gini index. The number ranges from zero to 1, and the higher the Gini index is, the more unequal the distribution of income is.

According to the Census, it was .469 in 2009 and .4817 in 2017.

The bottom half of earners have seen their pre-tax incomes fall while the highest earners have seen a fairly steady rise.

Debate abounds over how and why incomes vary by gender and whether the wage gap can fairly be said to exist. However, men and women, as well as people of different races, all have much different pay.

Following the dips in growth that marked the recession, the economy slowly and steadily rebounded. Many, including Trump, have said observed rates of growth are far too low.

Hate crime incidents in the US neared 6,000 in both 2013 and 2015.

The Obama administration created 11.3 million jobs in eight years, and the economy added jobs for 75 straight months, a record that totals 6 years.

More jobs were created under Obama than under George W. Bush, who only created 2.1 million jobs. However, Obama fell short of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, who saw 22.9 million and 15.9 million jobs created, respectively, under their presidencies.

The countries he hosted include:

When he was elected in 2008, 28,223,000 people were receiving food stamps.

In 2016, 44,219,000 people received food stamps -- an increase of nearly 16 million people.

Although Obama has vastly reduced the number of troops in Afghanistan during his time in office, he has failed to withdraw all American troops from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

As of December 2016, there were still 9,800 troops left.

As of January 2017, 45 prisoners remain and 171 have been released under Obama.

Nine of the 171 have been "confirmed" to have returned to terrorist activities, according to a government report.

Obama had pledged to close the controversial center within one year in an executive order he signed shortly after his inauguration in January 2009.

Obama hit the links 333 times since assuming the presidency, according to CBS News' Mark Knoller, the unofficial White House statistician who pledged to track each and every round played by the commander in chief.

While his critics have said this is too many rounds to play, his figure doesn't come close to the amount played by Woodrow Wilson, who is said to have played 1,200 rounds while President.

In 2015, the median was $56,516, which was a 5.2% increase from 2014. This was also the first increase in median income since 2007, before the economic crash.

In December 2016, the index was a high 113.7 -- a stark difference to when fell as low as 25 during the recession, when Obama took office.

The poverty rate in the United States in 2015 was 13.5%. This is down 1.2 percentage points from 14.8% in 2014. In 2015, there were 43.1 million people in poverty, 3.5 million fewer than in 2014.

The birth rate fell to 59.8 births per 1,000 women in 2016 under Obama.

The price of milk decreased under Obama from $3.58/gallon when he took office in January 2009 to $3.28/gallon as of November 2016.

CNN's Kevin Liptak, a White House reporter, has kept a running tally of Obama's acts of clemency -- the president's decisions to pardon or commute criminal sentences.

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44 ways to judge the Obama era - CNN International

Obama was asked in his final news conference as President about race relations in the US, saying that "inequality" was what concerns him most.

"I worry about inequality because I think if we are not investing in making sure everybody plays a role in this economy, the economy will not grow as fast, and I think it will also lead to further and further separation between us as Americans," Obama said. "Not just along racial lines -- here are a whole lot of folks who voted for (President-elect Donald) Trump because they feel left behind. ... You don't want to have an America in which a very small sliver of people is doing very well and everybody else is fighting for scraps, because that's oftentimes when racial divisions get magnified."

He mentioned in particular access to voting as a key concern of his -- nothing that the oft-cited explanation for restrictive voting laws of widespread fraud is inaccurate.

"This is something that has constantly been disproved," Obama said. "This is fake news."

Obama also said the premise that millions of Americans were trying to vote but ineligible was the opposite of reality.

"We have a whole country of people who are eligible to vote who don't vote," Obama said. "And so the whole idea that we put in place a bunch of barriers to people voting doesn't make sense."

He added that limits to voting rights "traces directly back to Jim Crow and the legacy of slavery."

The outgoing President is expected to take an active interest in issues of voting as he leaves office. His former attorney general, Eric Holder, is chairing a new Democratic organization aimed to engage in the next redistricting cycle to combat another issue Obama mentioned Wednesday -- gerrymandering.

Obama said earlier in the news conference that he views a difference between normal political back-and-forth and issues where "our core values may be at stake," saying the latter may prompt him to speak out.

"I'd put in that category: if I saw systematic discrimination being ratified in some fashion," Obama said. "I'd put in that category explicit or functional obstacles to people being able to vote, to exercise their franchise. I'd put in that category institutional efforts to silence dissent or the press. And for me, at least, I would put in that category efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids and send them someplace else."

The term "fake news" began as a way to identify inaccurate propaganda that rose during the election that purported to be legitimate media. It has also since been used by both sides of the political spectrum to malign the other or to express disagreement.

The expert analysis on voting has found that actual instances of voter fraud are extremely low, a small handful among millions of votes cast in an election. Supporters of measures designed to combat voting fraud have cited studies that found the potential for fraud is much greater.

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Obama calls voter fraud fears 'fake news' - CNN

Then-Senator Barack Obama speaks as rain falls during a rally at Widener University in Chester, Penn. in October 2008. Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Then-Senator Barack Obama speaks as rain falls during a rally at Widener University in Chester, Penn. in October 2008.

My whole life, I've dreamed of having a home theater. But those are expensive, so instead I did it on the cheap. I got a projector off Craigslist, went to the hardware store and bought some wood to build a frame, then stretched a white canvas over it and stapled it tight.

I'm really proud of the final product it's not perfect, but it's pretty good for an English teacher. Now my family and I all sit and watch it, this screen. Between movies, TV shows and games, we spent the whole winter break looking at my creation.

The funny thing is, we're not actually watching the screen itself. Instead, we're watching the images projected onto it. The things we see have nothing to do with its fabric; they're being cast there, from a gray box hidden on the back of the ceiling. When the lights go on, there's the screen again, just an empty, inert canvas.

I keep thinking of my projector and screen when I think of President Obama in the moment both how he affected the way I look at the world, and how others projected their worldview onto him.

When I first noticed Obama on the stage of the 2004 DNC convention, I saw, with great pride, someone of my own tribe. He was black and mixed like me, but he was also a gifted orator with vision. I was proud that he was even there.

Those who see people like themselves in power all the time don't understand that feeling. They take it for granted. The rest of us don't: It's huge. Trust me.

Mat Johnson is the author of the novels Loving Day and Pym. He teaches at the University of Houston's creative writing program. Meera Bowman Johnson hide caption

Mat Johnson is the author of the novels Loving Day and Pym. He teaches at the University of Houston's creative writing program.

When Obama ran for president and unexpectedly won the Iowa caucus, I was even prouder. But I also didn't think he could win the whole thing, because the America I saw, the one I grew up seeing, was far too racist to ever let that happen.

When Obama did win, my reaction went beyond pride. I was shook. Now I could see this other, more optimistic version of America. It was the one that Obama imagined, the one he projected for us all to see.

After his inauguration, my wife and I drove from Houston back to Philly, to see our family, traveling through the red clay of the deep South. Before the trip, I never knew how beautiful the South was, the way the sun shone down through the Spanish moss of those old trees. I'd been through the South before, but I'd never seen it without thinking about slavery and about the century of racial injustice that followed slavery.

While that history wasn't erased, my wife and I, both the descendants of slaves, were struck with a new, amazing feeling of belonging. With our three small kids in our air-conditioned mini-van, we passed through the very counties where our ancestors lived in bondage. Our wheels spun over the very soil our relatives were forced to toil. But now we, too, were Americans. We were Americans with full membership in a way that we never felt before.

It was the same nation it'd always been, but it was projected through Obama's eyes. I felt like I could see the beauty of America clearer.

For me, Obama was the projector ... he projected a new, beautiful vision of America.

Mat Johnson

I wanted to say that: That for me, Obama was the projector, that he projected a new, beautiful vision of America. Because for most of his presidency, I saw him being used by the majority of white America as the opposite. He was their screen, a canvas on which they cast their own tribal anxiety, their own subconscious racial baggage, until they couldn't see the real man even if they wanted to.

I'll say this for President Obama: We went into his administration talking about a "post-racial America." We went out of his administration talking about a "post-factual" America. Nothing says you've won the argument like your opponent claiming facts don't matter.

It's almost funny now, all the post-racial talk. When Obama was first elected, some white folks seemed to think it was proof that racism was over, that everyone could just shut up about it now. Others soon complained that Obama was making race relations worse, that his blackness made white America a majority of whom didn't vote for him mad as hell.

Some cast onto him the image of the "magic Negro savior," the one foretold in all those Morgan Freeman movies. Conservative media spent years projecting onto him their fear of the radical black man out for vengeance, a modern day Nat Turner. Obama was going to rob them of their civil liberties, take away their guns, even institute Sharia law.

So much was projected onto President Obama God, devil and everything in between. How the world saw him didn't tell you much about him, but it told you a lot about who was doing the projecting.

I didn't always agree with Obama when he was president. Not domestically, not internationally. But I always respected and will always respect that man. And I will be extremely thankful for what he stood for, for what he meant to my family and for the America that he allowed all of us to see.

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Looking Back With Gratitude On Obama, And His Optimistic Vision Of America - NPR