While the absolute numbers of Texas state employees and dollars spent on payroll are very large, they are not so large when compared to other states. Data gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Texas ranked 44th among the fifty states in terms of numbers of full-time equivalent state employees as a percentage of the total state population.

According to these data, full-time equivalent employment with the state government equaled approximately 1.2 percent of the total state population. The other six states with lower state employment as a percentage of the population included two other states in the southwest region of the country, Arizona and Nevada. But, they also included two states from the old industrial and agricultural heartland, Ohio and Illinois, as well as Florida and California.

Generally, it seems that the largest states in terms of population are the ones with the lowest levels of state government employment as a percentage of population. Seven of the bottom ten states in terms of state public employment as a percentage of the population happen to rank as the top seven most populous states, including in descending order from most populous: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

On the other end of the scale, six of the ten states with the highest ratio of full-time state government employment to overall population are also among the least populous states, with Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, and Alaska heading the list in the top four positions.

So, what's going on here? It seems that economies of scale are at work. All states must provide a minimum set of services, including the core functions of democratic government (legislature, executive branch, judiciary), infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.), public safety, and economic regulation. On top of these core functions, states also provide social services, public education, and environmental protection. The fixed costs in personnel needed to establish operations in each of these areas is substantial, while the variable costs in personnel of adding more capacity is somewhat less expensive. Very large states can establish powerful public programs in each policy area serving millions of people with proportionally smaller staffs. In short, once minimum staffing levels are achieved, adding the capacity to do more often costs less than setting up the basic organization.

These "economies of scale" keep Texas consistent with its small-government political culture, at least relative to other states. As this chapter's chart This Time It's Personnel illustrates, Texas is among the states with the smallest share of its citizens working for the state (1.2% in 2003).