President Joe Biden accepted an invitation from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Democrat from California) to deliver his first State of the Union address on March 1, 2022. This is the first time in the history of the United States that a president has delivered a State of the Union address during the month of March.

President Biden’s first address to Congress after taking office in 2021 drew about 27 million people, while an estimated 38.2 million viewers watched this year’s State of the Union address, according to Nielsen ratings, an American information, data and market measurement firm. Fox News Channel averaged the biggest audience for the address, an estimated 7.2 million. ABC averaged 6.3 million viewers, followed by CBS with 4.9 million; CNN’s 4.8 million; NBC’s 4.7 million; MSNBC’s 4.1 million; Fox, 1.9 million.

Presidents in the past have typically used the address to tout domestic priorities and accomplishments with a mere nod to international issues. But as the crisis in Ukraine escalates, President Biden directly speaks about the situation. After Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, the Biden team revised his speech beforehand to highlight Moscow’s aggression as a major crisis facing the West, The Washington Post’s Annie Linskey and Tyler Pager report. He condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin and pledged that he’d “pay a price” for the invasion, which has sparked widespread protests, including in Boston and Cambridge, and severe economic sanctions which have blocked Russian banks and Kremlin-linked oligarchs from the world economy.

One of the top concerns cited by Americans in polls has been inflation, which is at an all-time high in decades. Biden talked about lowering overall inflation along with reducing costs in specific areas like childcare and prescription drugs with legislation he is pushing to get through Congress. An NPR/PBS “NewsHour” poll released Friday found that only 36% of respondents agreed with how Biden is handling the economy and 39% approved of his overall job performance.

Another specific step President Biden plans to announce to help address rising prices will be an agreement between the Justice Department and the Federal Maritime Commission designed to make sure that large ocean freight companies can’t overcharge U.S. customers, the White House said. To that end, the president plans to announce a new effort that officials say will help boost the economy by seeking to promote more competition in the ocean shipping market, one dominated by just three global alliances.

Other new programs he is scheduled to announce include an effort to improve nursing home staffing, make poorly performing nursing homes accountable for improper and unsafe care, and improve publicly available information about nursing home conditions.

Biden repeatedly calls for investing in green energy and combating climate change, expanding childcare and senior care, expanding preschool access and slashing prescription drug prices in the duration of his speech. He intends to continue to press Congress to act on programs in his stalled Build Back Better legislation, he also plans to ask Congress to act on other ideas he has proposed. This includes better housing for seniors and the disabled, raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, and lowering the cost of higher education, including by way of an increase in the maximum Pell Grant award by more than $2,000.

“There’s no question that this speech is a little different than it would have been just a few months ago,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. Every State of the Union speech, she said, “reflects a moment in time.” Despite the persistent decline in his job-approval ratings since last summer, he remains confident in his political compass. His speech centered on providing kitchen-table assistance to average families, encouraging greater national unity, and reasserting America’s role as the leader against challenges from aggressive autocracies symbolized by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.