Arkansas vs Texas on USAspending: $1.7B against $72.7B

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.

FY2026: $262.7M in Arkansas, $21.5B in Texas

The latest fiscal year is FY2026. Arkansas booked $262.7M; Texas booked $21.5B. Texas’s latest year is a large piece of its $72.7B stack. Arkansas’s $262.7M is a modest slice of $1.7B. Recency does not close the gap; it restates it in a single year.

Do not annualize $262.7M or $21.5B into a forecast. Do not divide them by the all-years counts of 79,590 and 530,634. Per capita of $85.06 and $686.10 already divides the stacked obligations by 3,088,354 and 31,290,831 residents. FY2026 is the recency cut of the same obligations series.

What $85.06 and $686.10 do and do not mean

Spending per capita uses Census population against USAspending place-of-performance obligations. Arkansas’s $85.06 on 3,088,354 people is a thin federal-award intensity in this aggregate. Texas’s $686.10 on 31,290,831 people is a much thicker one. Neither figure is personal income, and neither is a state-budget grade.

Outlays can lag obligations. Headquarters can differ from place of performance. The $1.7B and $72.7B totals remain award commitments as USAspending.gov publishes them.

Reading Arkansas against a $72.7B neighbor

Hold the poultry-processing lead next to the pharmaceutical-preparation lead, then return to the scoreboard: $1.7B versus $72.7B, 79,590 versus 530,634 awards, $85.06 versus $686.10 per capita, FY2026 $262.7M versus $21.5B. The comparison is a scale check, not a verdict on either state’s economy.

Open the Arkansas hub for the $1.7B file’s agencies. Open the Texas hub for the $72.7B file. The side-by-side comparison page keeps both in view without mixing obligations with outlays.

Scale first, then the poultry-versus-pharma mix

Arkansas’s 79,590 awards and Texas’s 530,634 awards are not interchangeable samples of the same economy. Poultry processing as Arkansas’s lead industry and pharmaceutical preparation manufacturing as Texas’s lead industry sit on $1.7B and $72.7B. The mix difference is real. The scale difference is larger. A reader who starts with NAICS labels and never returns to $1.7B versus $72.7B will over-read the industry tags.

Per capita of $85.06 on 3,088,354 Arkansas residents versus $686.10 on 31,290,831 Texas residents is the intensity version of the same scale story. FY2026’s $262.7M versus $21.5B restates it in one year. USAspending.gov obligations can lag as cash. Place of performance can differ from headquarters. Those caveats apply equally to poultry processing awards and pharmaceutical preparation awards. They do not shrink $72.7B into $1.7B.

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.