The Presidency / The First Year

Gold plate on back of chair that says "the president"

Joe Biden at one year

Presidential experts evaluate the 46th president's first year in office

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Donald Trump at one year

White House veterans and Miller Center scholars evaluate the 45th president's first 365 days

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Featured Video

First Year Project Introduction

Watch this overview of the First Year Project

Schematics

Science and Technology

The long game

What can a president do to build a next-generation economy? How can economic growth widen opportunity for all Americans, not just a privileged few? Every modern American president has wrestled with some version of these two questions during his first year in office.
Margaret O'Mara
University of Washington
Stacks of money

Economic Issues

The income gap

Along with terrorism, climate change, disease pandemics, and the prospect of persistently low economic growth, inequality has crept up the international policy agenda to become one of the most urgent and important issues of our time.
Dambisa Moyo
4 presidents

Economic Issues

Presidential precedents

All four presidents from Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton whose administrations’ histories have been published as part of the Miller Center’s Presidential Oral History Program either faced a challenge or launched an initiative during their first year in office relating to the expansion of opportunity in the service of greater social and economic mobility.
Michael Nelson
Miller Center
Hero Image

Economic Issues

Longing for uplift

The need is urgent, the time and political circumstances are right, and the nation is longing for uplift, for a positive agenda, for a way forward. You can provide it.
Peter Wehner
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Ladders

Jobs and Economy

Opportune moment

Equal opportunity is America’s promise. From the very beginning of our national existence, we have told ourselves and the world that here, unlike so many other countries, where you begin does not determine where you end up.
William Galston
Brookings Institution
Children's hands

Education

Pre-K prerequisite

The time has come to ensure that every poor preschooler in the United States is enrolled for two years of the best educational opportunity the public can provide. Anything short of this will fail to realize the promise of early education as an equalizer in American society.
Robert Pianta
University of Virginia