The State of the Union in 19 Words, 1790–2026

About this chart

Each column is one year's State of the Union message, from Washington's first in 1790 to 2026, and each row is one of 19 words. A cell lights up by how often that word appears in that year's message, from dark when it is not said to bright yellow, compared with the word's own busiest year, which glows. The rows run in order of those busiest years, so the glowing cells step down from debt in 1802 to America and climate in 2021. The blue strip marks messages sent to Congress in writing instead of spoken. The readout names the year's President, the length of the message and its three brightest words. The animation fills in the record over sixty seconds, holds on the last year for three seconds, and loops. The scrubber under the chart marks each year and pauses on any of them.

Method

Every annual message a President has sent or delivered to Congress, from George Washington's first on January 8, 1790, to February 24, 2026, one for each year. There was none in 1933: Hoover's last came in December 1932 and Roosevelt's first in January 1934. Where a year has more than one, the chart uses the spoken annual address, else the written annual message, else a new President's first address to a joint session of Congress (1989, 1993, 2001, 2009, 2017, 2021 and 2025); in 1790 it uses Washington's first of two. Messages sent in writing rather than spoken, as every one was from 1801 to 1912 and some were later, are marked by the blue strip above the grid. The texts come from government printings: Richardson's Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents for 1790–1892, in Project Gutenberg's transcription; Foreign Relations of the United States for 1893–1932; the bound Congressional Record for Taft's 1911 and 1912 messages and for 1934–1992; and the Compilation of Presidential Documents, as delivered, for 1993–2026. The spoken addresses of 1934–1992 are as printed in the Congressional Record, which sometimes differs a little from the text the White House released. Lines the Record's scans lost (in 1912, 1949 and 1957, and in the written messages of 1974 and 1979–1981) stay lost. Each text runs from the salutation to the last sentence; signatures, editors' notes, marks of applause and laughter, statistical tables and the words of anyone but the President are removed. The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was used only to check each text word for word; none of its text is used or published here.

The 19 word lists were fixed, and saved, before any message was counted, and are the same for every year. A row counts any of these words: debt (debt, debts); prices (price, prices); China (China, Chinese); war (war, wars, wartime); Congress (Congress, congressional); oil/energy (oil, energy); taxes (tax, taxes, taxation, taxpayer, taxpayers); inflation (inflation, inflationary); peace (peace, peaceful); Russia/Soviet (Russia, Russian, Russians, Soviet, Soviets, USSR); God (God); family (family, families); internet (internet); terror (terror, terrorism, terrorist, terrorists); freedom/liberty (freedom, freedoms, liberty, liberties); jobs (job, jobs); border (border, borders); America (America, American, Americans); climate (climate). A word is a run of letters, ignoring capitals: hyphens split words ("well-being" is two), numbers are not words, and a word before an apostrophe counts ("America's" counts for America). Every sense of a word counts: "climate" in 1803 is the climate of Louisiana, and "oil" in the 1790s is whale oil. The counts describe the words only; they say nothing about what a President meant.

Each cell is the word's mentions per 1,000 words of that year's message, so long and short messages compare fairly. Each word is then measured against its own busiest year, the year of its highest rate: debt 1802 (4.1 per 1,000 words), prices 1887 (5.3), China 1900 (2.5), war 1944 (14.0), Congress 1969 (7.6), oil/energy 1975 (11.2), taxes 1975 (7.2), inflation 1979 (4.6), peace 1980 (6.6), Russia/Soviet 1980 (9.2), God 1984 (2.0), family 1986 (5.3), internet 1997 (0.9), terror 2002 (8.9), freedom/liberty 2005 (5.6), jobs 2013 (6.9), border 2019 (2.5), America 2021 (17.5) and climate 2021 (0.8). A year's cell is colored by its rate as a share of that busiest rate: dark when the word is not said, then violet under 10%, magenta from 10% to under 25%, coral from 25% to under 50%, orange from 50% to under 75% and yellow from 75%; the busiest year itself is cream and glows. So a cell's brightness compares a word only with itself: a bright "climate" cell stands for far fewer mentions than a bright "America" cell. The rows run in order of each word's busiest year. The three words in the readout are the year's brightest cells, the highest shares of their busiest years (ties go to the higher rate), with their rates per 1,000 words.

Data sources

• James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1790–1892 (Project Gutenberg's transcription)
• Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, the annual message, 1893–1932 (Office of the Historian)
• Congressional Record, bound edition, 1911–1912 and 1934–1992 (govinfo)
• Compilation of Presidential Documents, 1993–2026 (govinfo)