Reading Level of State of the Union Addresses
datascience@berkeley collected the reading level of each president’s first State of the Union address using the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. The test’s scale of 0-18 correlates to grade level. For example, Trump’s score of 8.1 places his speech at an 8th grade reading level; Wilson’s score of 15.6 places his speech at a collegiate reading level.
| President | Party | Year | Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level |
|---|---|---|---|
Donald J. Trump | Republican | 2018 | 8.1 |
Barack Obama | Democrat | 2010 | 8.7 |
George W. Bush | Republican | 2002 | 9.8 |
Bill Clinton | Democrat | 1994 | 8.9 |
George Bush Sr. | Republican | 1990 | 9.0 |
Ronald Reagan | Republican | 1982 | 11.1 |
James Carter, Jr. | Democrat | 1978 | 9.8 |
Gerald Ford | Republican | 1975 | 10.9 |
Richard Nixon | Republican | 1970 | 10.8 |
Lyndon B. Johnson | Democrat | 1964 | 11.4 |
John F. Kennedy | Democrat | 1961 | 12.8 |
Dwight D. Eisenhower | Republican | 1953 | 12.4 |
Harry S. Truman | Democrat | 1946 | 12.7 |
Franklin D. Roosevelt | Democrat | 1934 | 15.5 |
Herbert Hoover | Republican | 1929 | 14.5 |
Calvin Coolidge | Republican | 1923 | 10.9 |
Warren Harding | Republican | 1921 | 14.7 |
Woodrow Wilson | Democrat | 1913 | 15.6 |
Transcripts: https://presidency.ucsb.edu/sou.php