Each president\u2019s State of the Union address is an attempt to set the tone for his term in office \u2014 what are the administration\u2019s goals, plans and promises? Those questions dominate the 24-hour news cycle around this yearly address to Congress.<\/p>\n
Nearly 50 million people tuned in to watch President Obama\u2019s first State of the Union address<\/a> in 2010. President Trump\u2019s speech last year generated more than 4.5 million tweets,<\/a> the most ever for a presidential address.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been more than a century since President Woodrow Wilson\u2019s first State of the Union address, and while the language presidents use to communicate has evolved, many of the words, phrases, and ideas have stood the test of time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Comparing those words, over time, is one way to hold presidencies up against each other, to assess the ways in which presidential communication has changed. How can we objectively compare one State of the Union address to another? Data analysis can be used to transform otherwise dry, static information into comparable statistics that show trends across words, presidents, and years.<\/p>\n One way to compare speeches is to assess their reading levels using the Flesch-Kincaid grade level test.<\/a> The Flesch-Kincaid readability tests are designed to indicate how difficult a passage is to understand.<\/p>\n Read the text-only version of Reading Level of State of the Union Addresses.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The data from speeches can be used to compare more than just overall values like reading level. For example, it\u2019s easy to predict that the economy will come up in a State of the Union address. But data shows that presidents tend to talk about taxes more than jobs, and jobs more than banks. Also, among presidents since Wilson, Harry Truman talked about the economy the most \u2014 2.9 percent of his speech was made up of words like \u201cbusiness,\u201d \u201cdebt,\u201d and \u201cdollar.\u201d<\/p>\n Read the text-only version of State of the: Economy.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Truman is the only president to say \u201crefugees\u201d in his first State of the Union, and Reagan was the first president to say \u201cterrorism\u201d in his.<\/p>\n Read the text-only version of State of the: Policy.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n President Trump and President George W. Bush are the only ones to mention Guantanamo in their first State of the Union addresses.<\/p>\n Read the text-only version of State of the: Military.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Words like \u201cI\u201d, \u201cme\u201d, and \u201cus\u201d make up a larger percentage of each address, but it varies. For example, President Ronald Reagan said \u201ctogether\u201d more than anyone else \u2014 it was 0.29 percent of his address.<\/p>\n Read the text-only version of State of the: People.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n President Trump said \u201cvery\u201d almost twice as frequently as any other president in their first State of the Union address, while President Nixon said \u201cgreat\u201d more than anyone else.<\/p>\n Read the text-only version of State of the: Superlatives.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n How often is the rest of the world mentioned in this early-term address? Countries like Libya and Palestine have only ever been mentioned once, while presidents have said \u201cEurope\u201d 54 times in total.<\/p>\n Read the text-only version of State of the: World.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Overall, education isn\u2019t talked about as frequently. Of the words listed, President Roosevelt only said \u201ceducation\u201d once, and Wilson mentioned \u201cschools\u201d just one time as well.<\/p>\n Read the text-only version of State of the: Schools.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Facebook<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n View methodology.<\/a><\/p>\n Citation for this content: datascience@berkeley, the <\/em>online masters in data science<\/em><\/a> from UC Berkeley<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Go to Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading Levels<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/corp-mktg.s3.amazonaws.com\/cask\/prod\/ucb-mids\/content\/c8e8ce766d0e4e42bb0b9b537d69c418\/state-of-the-union-reading-levels.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nState of the Union Word Analysis<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/corp-mktg.s3.amazonaws.com\/cask\/prod\/ucb-mids\/content\/72d6c3ce9ae34208862c0dd3634e797c\/state-of-the-economy.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/corp-mktg.s3.amazonaws.com\/cask\/prod\/ucb-mids\/content\/cceaefc96c06403382999d9ca1aec071\/state-of-the-policy.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/corp-mktg.s3.amazonaws.com\/cask\/prod\/ucb-mids\/content\/b9db0409477746ec8b56031b8a6e176e\/state-of-the-military.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/corp-mktg.s3.amazonaws.com\/cask\/prod\/ucb-mids\/content\/2ac7e2eebb7a4a41be36847e1f601ab2\/state-of-the-people.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/corp-mktg.s3.amazonaws.com\/cask\/prod\/ucb-mids\/content\/16a5f187c5894241a99421fd71c8e1e4\/state-of-the-superlatives.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/corp-mktg.s3.amazonaws.com\/cask\/prod\/ucb-mids\/content\/f5c26efaa5a74280a279e058e5bc0b9d\/state-of-the-world.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/corp-mktg.s3.amazonaws.com\/cask\/prod\/ucb-mids\/content\/477b29d0a1d343dca3ab00b0a3b5c35d\/state-of-the-schools.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nShare this on social media:<\/h2>\n