Resources: Executive orders by the numbers
Donald Trump has done plenty of this in his first days as president, signing seven executive orders.
It's not unusual for one party or the other to accuse a president of abusing executive power. But to put it in perspective, The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, keeps a running tab on executive orders. Using its numbers, we have listed the presidents two ways:
- By total number of executive orders;
- By average number of executive orders per year.
Presidents listed by total number of executive orders:
| President | Years in Office | Orders | Annual Average | |
| Franklin D. Roosevelt | 12.12 | 3,721 | 307 | |
| Woodrow Wilson | 8 | 1,803 | 225 | |
| Calvin Coolidge | 5.59 | 1,203 | 215 | |
| Theodore Roosevelt | 7.47 | 1,081 | 145 | |
| Herbert Hoover | 4 | 968 | 242 | |
| Harry S. Truman | 7.78 | 907 | 117 | |
| William Howard Taft | 4 | 724 | 181 | |
| Warren G. Harding | 2.4 | 522 | 217 | |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower | 8 | 484 | 61 | |
| Ronald Reagan | 8 | 381 | 48 | |
| William J. Clinton | 8 | 364 | 46 | |
| Richard Nixon | 5.5 | 346 | 62 | |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 5.17 | 325 | 63 | |
| Jimmy Carter | 4 | 320 | 80 | |
| George W. Bush | 8 | 291 | 36 | |
| Barack Obama | 8 | 276 | 35 | |
| Ulysses S. Grant | 8 | 217 | 27 | |
| John F. Kennedy | 2.8 | 214 | 75 | |
| William McKinley | 4.5 | 185 | 41 | |
| Gerald R. Ford | 2.4 | 169 | 69 | |
| George H.W. Bush | 4 | 166 | 42 | |
| Benjamin Harrison | 4 | 143 | 36 | |
| Grover Cleveland - II * | 4 | 140 | 35 | |
| Grover Cleveland - I | 4 | 113 | 28 | |
| Chester Arthur | 3.4 | 96 | 28 | |
| Rutherford B. Hayes | 4 | 92 | 23 | |
| Andrew Johnson | 3.8 | 79 | 20 | |
| Abraham Lincoln | 4.1 | 48 | 12 | |
| Franklin Pierce | 4 | 35 | 9 | |
| James K. Polk | 4 | 18 | 5 | |
| John Tyler | 4 | 17 | 4 | |
| James Buchanan | 4 | 16 | 4 | |
| Millard Fillmore | 2.6 | 12 | 5 | |
| Andrew Jackson | 8 | 12 | 2 | |
| Martin van Buren | 4 | 10 | 3 | |
| George Washington | 7.8 | 8 | 1 | |
| James Garfield | 0.5 | 6 | 11 | |
| Zachary Taylor | 1.3 | 5 | 4 | |
| Thomas Jefferson | 8 | 4 | 0.5 | |
| John Quincy Adams | 4 | 3 | 1 | |
| John Adams | 4 | 1 | 0.25 | |
|
8 | 1 | 0.13 | |
| James Monroe | 8 | 1 | 0.13 | |
| William Henry Harrison | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Presidents listed by average number of executive orders per year:
| President | Annual Average | ||||
| Franklin D. Roosevelt | 307 | ||||
| Herbert Hoover | 242 | ||||
| Woodrow Wilson | 225 | ||||
| Warren G. Harding | 217 | ||||
| Calvin Coolidge | 215 | ||||
| William Howard Taft | 181 | ||||
| Theodore Roosevelt | 145 | ||||
| Harry S. Truman | 117 | ||||
| Jimmy Carter | 80 | ||||
| John F. Kennedy | 75 | ||||
| Gerald R. Ford | 69 | ||||
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 63 | ||||
| Richard Nixon | 62 | ||||
| Dwight D. Eisenhower | 61 | ||||
| Ronald Reagan | 48 | ||||
| William J. Clinton | 46 | ||||
| George H.W. Bush | 42 | ||||
| William McKinley | 41 | ||||
| George W. Bush | 36 | ||||
| Benjamin Harrison | 36 | ||||
| Barack Obama | 35 | ||||
| Grover Cleveland - II | 35 | ||||
| Grover Cleveland - I | 28 | ||||
| Chester Arthur | 28 | ||||
| Ulysses S. Grant | 27 | ||||
| Rutherford B. Hayes | 23 | ||||
| Andrew Johnson | 20 | ||||
| Abraham Lincoln | 12 | ||||
| James Garfield | 11 | ||||
| Franklin Pierce | 9 | ||||
| James K. Polk | 5 | ||||
| Millard Fillmore | 5 | ||||
| John Tyler | 4 | ||||
| James Buchanan | 4 | ||||
| Zachary Taylor | 4 | ||||
| Martin van Buren | 3 | ||||
| Andrew Jackson | 2 | ||||
| George Washington | 1 | ||||
| John Quincy Adams | 1 | ||||
| Thomas Jefferson | 0.5 | ||||
| John Adams | 0.25 | ||||
| James Madison | 0.13 | ||||
|
0.13 | ||||
| William Henry Harrison | 0 |
*Cleveland is listed twice because he served non-consecutive terms.
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