First 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency

The first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency began on January 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. The first 100 days of a presidency took on symbolic significance during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term in office, and the period is considered a benchmark to measure the early success of a president. The 100th day of Obama's presidency was April 30, 2009. He stated that he should not be judged just by his first hundred days: "The first hundred days is going to be important, but it's probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference." Obama began to formally create his presidential footprint during his first 100 days, attempting to foster support for his economic stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The bill passed in the House on January 28, 2009, by a 244–188 vote, then passed in the Senate on February 10 by a 61–37 margin.

Obama's accomplishments during the first 100 days included signing into law both the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which relaxed the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits, as well as the expanded State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP); winning approval of a congressional budget resolution that put Congress on record as dedicated to dealing with major health care reform legislation in 2009; implementing new ethics guidelines designed to significantly curtail the influence of lobbyists on the executive branch; breaking from the Bush administration on a number of policy fronts, except for Iraq, in which he followed through on Bush's withdrawal of U.S. troops; supporting the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity; and lifting the 7½-year ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Obama also ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, though this was ultimately unsuccessful. He later lifted some monetary and travel-related restrictions to the island.

At the end of the first 100 days, 65% of Americans approved of how Obama was doing and 29% disapproved. According to Gallup's First quarter survey in April, President Obama received a 63% approval rating. Gallup began tracking presidential approval ratings of the first quarters since Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. President John F. Kennedy received the highest in April 1961 with a 74% rating. Obama's 63% is the fourth highest and the highest since President Jimmy Carter with a 69%. President Ronald Reagan's first quarter had 60% approval in 1981, President George H. W. Bush with 57% in 1989, President Bill Clinton with 55% in 1993, and President George W. Bush with 58% in 2001.