The State of the Union Address follows a well-established pattern and offers splendid political theater: every spring, the American President delivers a long, rambling speech in Congress praising his own legislative accomplishments and explains what is in store for the country.
Most of the time you can rely on the message: everything is going according to plan, the United States is doing well, and where there are problems, we have a solution.
Your own party applauds, your political opponents disagree.
And the people?
How do Americans view Biden's presidency so far and the state of the nation?
What moves you, which topics are important to you?
We spoke to three of them:
Brenda Pizatella
comes from a small town in West Virginia.
She recently retired, before that she worked as a medical social worker in a hospital.
The parents of the 69-year-old woman used to have JFK next to a picture of the Pope on the kitchen wall.
She is a Democrat through and through, as she says.
In November 2020, she voted for Joe Biden.
Dennis Berwyn
was born in Washington, grew up in Frankfurt until he was 18, often spent summers in Austria, and then moved back to America with his family.
Today, the 61-year-old man has lived in Raleigh, North Carolina for many years.
He works for the State Department of Labor.
Prior to that, he oversaw and directed various campaign campaigns for local Republican politicians.
John Aloszka
lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works in the marketing department of a law firm.
The 24-year-old man's constituency has oscillated between Democrats and Republicans for several decades.
He would rather have had Elizabeth Warren instead of Joe Biden as a candidate in the last presidential election.
He chose it anyway.
How are you, how is America?
Dennis Berwyn:
Oh, sometimes things go better, sometimes worse, that's clear.
You laugh, you cry, but I look positively at life.
I have three granddaughters, I have a job, a good boss, and unlike many other Americans, I haven't lost a single paycheck during the pandemic.
Brenda Pizatella
: I stopped frantically following the news.
It depressed me too much.
But the worst moment was in March 2020. The hospital where I worked gave us 24 hours notice: "Pack up your things, we'll close tomorrow," they said.
We knew they had financial problems, but that was quite a shock.
It took me a while to recover from that.
John Aloszka:
I'm fine, I started a new job a few months ago, I work in a law firm now, before that I was a creative director at a magazine.
To be honest, I'm more concerned about the outbreak of World War III between Ukraine and Russia than I am about inflation.