Oklahoma spends much less than the national average on all of our public structures. We can start our evaluation by looking at what we spend and how our spending compares to other states. The figure below helps understand both.

The figure suggests two important themes that are essential to understanding public structures in Oklahoma.

• Our spending for virtually every public service and our total spending is well below national averages; and
• We spend a great deal more on education and health and social services than on any other public structures.

Oklahoma state and local governments spend much less than the national average for all government services. Combined state and local government spending in Oklahoma, per person, is 18 percent below the national average. According to CQ Press, Oklahoma governments spent $7,219 per person in 2007, while the national average was $8,846 per person. Oklahoma ranked 43rd in the nation in total state and local spending. Our spending that year was $450 per person less than the average of our surrounding states. This means we invest less in education, transportation, social services, and public safety than most states in our region or in the entire country.

In 2008, Oklahoma spent $2,538 per person, more one-third of our total government spending, on education. We spent 8 percent less than the average state, however. The difference similar for spending on health and social services, where Oklahoma spent $1,820 per person and the national average was $2,032. This pattern repeats itself for every service government supports. After the two largest expenditures, we spent from $350 to $600 per person on a range of essential services-transportation, public safety, environment and housing, utilities, and insurance trusts. Of these five service areas, transportation was the only one in which Oklahoma's spending was within 20 percent of the national average. The difference was greatest in environment and housing, where our spending per person was only 60 percent of the national average.

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