Arkansas vs Texas

Two South-Central files, one order-of-magnitude gap

Texas’s $72.7B is about 42 times Arkansas’s $1.7B on USAspending.gov obligations. Population is about 10 times (31,290,831 vs 3,088,354). Dollars outrun people, which is why Texas also leads intensity: $686.10 per capita versus $85.06. This pair does not invert. It stretches.

Award counts stretch less than dollars. Texas has 530,634 awards; Arkansas has 79,590, about a 6.7× gap. Texas’s typical booking is heavier. Arkansas’s 79,590 rows still describe a real statewide file — just not one that competes with $72.7B on stock or $686.10 on per-person intensity.

Arkansas’s $1.7B file still contains 79,590 awards. It is small next to Texas’s $72.7B and 530,634 awards, not empty. Poultry processing as the Arkansas peak and pharmaceutical preparation manufacturing as the Texas peak are mix facts that sit on those two very different stacks.

Poultry processing versus pharmaceutical preparation

Arkansas’s top industry is poultry processing. Texas’s is pharmaceutical preparation manufacturing. Those NAICS peaks sit on $1.7B and $72.7B. A processing lead in Arkansas and a drug-manufacturing lead in Texas are different mix stories. They are not accusations, and they are not complete industrial inventories.

Poultry processing can mean a cluster of food-production awards inside 79,590 actions. Pharmaceutical preparation manufacturing can concentrate large production and supply awards inside 530,634 actions. Readers should treat each label as the tallest bar in the mix, then use the Arkansas and Texas hubs for the rest of the recipients and agencies.

A $85.06 per-capita reading on 3,088,354 Arkansas residents versus $686.10 on 31,290,831 Texas residents is the intensity gap. FY2026’s $262.7M versus $21.5B is the recency gap. Neither gap is an outlay statement. Both are USAspending.gov obligations by place of performance.

Questions

How much federal spending does Arkansas have compared with Texas?

Texas leads by a wide margin on USAspending.gov obligations: $72.7B versus Arkansas’s $1.7B. Texas also leads per capita ($686.10 vs $85.06), award count (530,634 vs 79,590), and population (31,290,831 vs 3,088,354). FY2026 obligations are $21.5B in Texas and $262.7M in Arkansas. These are obligations, not outlays.

What is Arkansas’s top federal industry versus Texas?

Arkansas’s top industry is poultry processing. Texas’s is pharmaceutical preparation manufacturing. Those labels sit on $1.7B and $72.7B in obligations. They identify the largest industry slice in each statewide file, not every award among 79,590 Arkansas actions or 530,634 Texas actions.

Why is Texas’s spending per capita so much higher than Arkansas’s?

Texas’s $72.7B on 31,290,831 residents produces $686.10 per capita. Arkansas’s $1.7B on 3,088,354 residents produces $85.06. Dollars diverge faster than population (about 42× vs about 10×), so intensity as well as stock favors Texas. Award counts (530,634 vs 79,590) also favor Texas, but by a smaller multiple.

Are Arkansas and Texas figures from the Monthly Treasury Statement?

No. SpendingVault uses USAspending.gov obligations by place of performance. The $1.7B and $72.7B stacked totals and FY2026 amounts of $262.7M and $21.5B are award commitments. Cash outlays can lag those commitments. These figures are USAspending.gov obligations, not Treasury outlays.