As of 2006, Arkansas has an estimated population of 2,810,872, which is an increase of 29,154, or 1.1%, from the prior year and an increase of 105,756, or 4.0%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 52,214 people (that is 198,800 births minus 146,586 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 57,611 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 21,947 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 35,664 people. It is estimated that about 48.8% is male, and 51.2% is female. From 2000 through 2006 Arkansas has had a population growth of 5.1% or 137,472. The population density of the state is 51.3 people per square mile.
The center of population of Arkansas is located in the far northeast corner of Perry County.
According to the 2008 U.S. Census Estimates, Non-Hispanic White Americans made up 75.6% of Arkansas' population. African Americans made up 15.8% of Arkansas' population. Native Americans made up 0.9% of the state's population. Asian Americans made up 1.1% of the state's population. Pacific Islander Americans made up 0.1% of the population. Multiracial Americans made up 1.4% of the state's population. Hispanics and Latinos (of any race) made up 5.6% of Arkansas' population.
According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, the ten largest ancestry groups in the state African American (15.5%), Irish (13.6%), German (12.5%), American (11.1%), English (10.3%), French (2.4%), Scotch-Irish (2.1%), Dutch (1.9%), Scottish (1.9%) and Italian (1.7%).
European Americans have a strong presence in the northwestern Ozarks and the central part of the state. African Americans live mainly in the southern and eastern parts of the state. Arkansans of Irish, English and German ancestry are mostly found in the far northwestern Ozarks near the Missouri border. Ancestors of the Irish in the Ozarks were chiefly Scotch-Irish, Protestants from Northern Ireland, the Scottish lowlands and northern England part of the largest group of immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland before the American Revolution. English and Scotch-Irish immigrants settled throughout the backcountry of the South and in the more mountainous areas. Americans of English stock are found throughout the state and make up roughly one tenth of all Arkansans.
According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, 93.8% of Arkansas' population (over the age of five) spoke only English at home. About 4.5% of the state's population spoke Spanish at home. About 0.7% of the state's population spoke any other Indo-European language. About 0.8% of the state's population spoke an Asian language, and 0.2% spoke other languages.
In 2006, Arkansas has a larger percentage of tobacco smokers than the national average, with 24.0% of adults smoking.
Religion
Arkansas, like most other Southern states, is part of the
Bible Belt and is predominantly Protestant. The religious affiliations of the people are as follows:
Christian: 86.0% *Protestant: 78.0% **Baptist: 39.0% **Methodist: 9.0% **Pentecostal: 6.0% **Church of Christ: 6.0% **Assemblies of God: 3.0% **Other Protestant: 15.0% *Roman Catholic: 7.0% *Eastern Orthodox: <1.0% *Other Christian: <1.0% Non-religious: 14.0% Other religions: <1.0% Jewish: <1.0% Muslim: <1.0% The largest denominations by number of adherents in 2000 were the
Southern Baptist Convention with 665,307; the
United Methodist Church with 179,383; the
Roman Catholic Church with 115,967; and the
American Baptist Association with 115,916.
Economy
The state's gross domestic product for 2005 was $87 billion. Its per capita household median income (in current dollars) for 2004 was $35,295, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The state's agriculture outputs are poultry and eggs, soybeans, sorghum, cattle, cotton, rice, hogs, and milk. Its industrial outputs are food processing, electric equipment, fabricated metal products, machinery, paper products, bromine, and vanadium.
As of January 2010, the state's unemployment rate is 7.6%.
Several global companies are headquartered in the northwest corner of Arkansas, including Wal-Mart (the world's largest public corporation by revenue in 2007), J.B. Hunt and Tyson Foods. This area of the state has experienced an economic boom since the 1970s as a result.
In recent years, automobile parts manufacturers have opened factories in eastern Arkansas to support auto plants in other states.
Tourism is also very important to the Arkansas economy; the official state nickname "The Natural State" was originally created (as "Arkansas Is A Natural") for state tourism advertising in the 1970s, and is still regularly used to this day.
According to Forbes.com Arkansas currently ranks 21st for The Best States for Business, 9th for Business Cost, 40th for Labor, 22nd for Regulatory Environment, 17th for Economic Climate, 9th for Growth Prospects, 34th in Gross Domestic Product, and positive economic change of 3.8% or ranked 22nd.
Taxation
Arkansas imposes a
state income tax with six brackets, ranging from 1.0% to 7.0%. The first $9,000 of military pay of enlisted personnel is exempt from Arkansas tax; officers do not have to pay state income tax on the first $6,000 of their military pay. Retirees pay no tax on
Social Security, or on the first $6,000 in gain on their pensions along with recovery of
cost basis. Residents of
Texarkana, Arkansas are exempt from Arkansas income tax; wages and business income earned there by residents of
Texarkana, Texas are also exempt. Arkansas's gross receipts (
sales) tax and compensating (
use) tax rate is currently 6%. The state has also mandated that various services be subject to sales tax collection. They include wrecker and towing services; dry cleaning and laundry; body piercing, tattooing and electrolysis; pest control; security and alarm monitoring; self-storage facilities; boat storage and docking; and pet grooming and kennel services.
Along with the state sales tax, there are more than 300 local taxes in Arkansas. Cities and counties have the authority to enact additional local sales and use taxes if they are passed by the voters in their area. These local taxes have a ceiling or cap; they cannot exceed $25 for each 1% of tax assessed. These additional taxes are collected by the state, which distributes the money back to the local jurisdictions monthly. Low-income taxpayers with a total annual household income of less than $12,000 are permitted a sales tax exemption for electricity usage.
Sales of alcoholic beverages account for added taxes. A 10% supplemental mixed drink tax is imposed on the sale of alcoholic beverages (excluding beer) at restaurants. A 4% tax is due on the sale of all mixed drinks (except beer and wine) sold for "on-premises" consumption. A 3% tax is due on beer sold for off-premises consumption.
Property taxes are assessed on real and personal property; only 20% of the value is used as the tax base.
Transportation
Law and government
The current
Governor of Arkansas is
Mike Beebe, a
Democrat, who was elected on November 7, 2006.
One of Arkansas's U.S. Senators is Democrat Mark Pryor, and the other one is Republican John Boozman. The state has four seats in U.S. House of Representatives. One seat is held by Democrats: Mike Ross (map), and three are held by Republicans: Rick Crawford (politician), (map), Tim Griffin(map), and Steve Womack(map).
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; font-size:92%;" |+ Presidential elections results |- style="background:lightgrey;" ! Year ! Republican ! Democratic |- | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|2008 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|58.72% ''638,017 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|38.86% ''422,310 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|2004 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|54.31% ''572,898 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|44.55% ''469,953 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|2000 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|51.31% ''472,940 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|45.86% ''422,768 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|1996 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|36.80% ''325,416 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|53.74% ''475,171 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|1992 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|35.48% ''337,324 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|53.21% 505,823 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|1988 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|56.37% ''466,578 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|42.19% ''349,237 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|1984 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|60.47% ''534,774 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|38.29% ''338,646 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|1980 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|48.13% ''403,164 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|47.52% ''398,041 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|1976 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|34.93% ''268,753 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|64.94% ''499,614 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|1972 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|68.82% ''445,751 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|30.71% ''198,899 |- | style="text-align:center; background:lightgrey;"|1968* | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|31.01% ''189,062 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|30.33% ''184,901 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|1964 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|43.41% ''243,264 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|56.06% ''314,197 |- | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|1960 | style="text-align:center; background:#fff3f3;"|43.06% ''184,508 | style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0ff;"|50.19% ''215,049 |- | colspan="3" style="text-align:center; background:lightgrey;"|*State won by George Wallace
of the American Independent Party,
at 38.65%, or 235,627 votes |}
The Democratic Party holds super-majority status in the Arkansas General Assembly. A majority of local and statewide offices are also held by Democrats. This is rare in the modern South, where a majority of statewide offices are held by Republicans. Arkansas had the distinction in 1992 of being the only state in the country to give the majority of its vote to a single candidate in the presidential election—native son Bill Clinton—while every other state's electoral votes were won by pluralities of the vote among the three candidates. Arkansas has become more reliably Republican in presidential elections in recent years. The state voted for John McCain in 2008 by a margin of 20 percentage points, making it one of the few states in the country to vote more Republican than it had in 2004. (The others were Louisiana, Tennessee, Oklahoma and West Virginia.) Obama's relatively poor showing in Arkansas was likely due to a lack of enthusiasm from state Democrats following former Arkansas First Lady Hillary Clinton's failure to win the nomination, and his relatively poor performance among rural white voters. However, the Democratic presence remains strong on the state level; in 2006, Democrats were elected to all statewide offices by the voters in a Democratic sweep that included the Democratic Party of Arkansas regaining the governorship, and in 2008, freshman Senator Mark Pryor was re-elected with nearly 80% of the vote against Green candidate Rebekah Kennedy with no Republican opposition.
Most Republican strength lies mainly in the northwestern part of the state, particularly Fort Smith and Bentonville, as well as North Central Arkansas around the Mountain Home area. In the latter area, Republicans have been known to get 90 percent or more of the vote. The rest of the state is more Democratic. Arkansas has only elected two Republicans to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction, Tim Hutchinson, who was defeated after one term by Mark Pryor and John Boozman, who defeated incumbent Blanche Lincoln. The General Assembly has not been controlled by the Republican Party since Reconstruction and is the fourth most heavily Democratic Legislature in the country, after Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Connecticut. Arkansas was one of just three states among the states of the former Confederacy that sent two Democrats to the U.S. Senate (the others being Florida and Virginia) during the first decade of the 21st century.
Although Democrats have an overwhelming majority of registered voters, Arkansas Democrats tend to be slightly more conservative than their national counterparts, particularly outside Little Rock. Arkansas' Democratic congressman is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, which tends to be more pro-business, pro-military, and socially conservative than the center-left Democratic mainstream. Reflecting the state's large evangelical population, the state has a strong social conservative bent. Under the Arkansas Constitution Arkansas is a right to work state, its voters passed a ban on same-sex marriage with 75% voting yes, and the state is one of a handful with legislation on its books banning abortion in the event Roe v. Wade is ever overturned.
In Arkansas, the lieutenant governor is elected separately from the governor and thus can be from a different political party.
Each officer's term is four years long. Office holders are term-limited to two full terms plus any partial terms before the first full term. Arkansas governors served two-year terms until a referendum lengthened the term to four years, effective with the 1986 general election. Statewide elections are held two years after presidential elections.
Some of Arkansas's counties have two county seats, as opposed to the usual one seat. The arrangement dates back to when travel was extremely difficult in the state. The seats are usually on opposite sides of the county. Though travel is no longer the difficulty it once was, there are few efforts to eliminate the two seat arrangement where it exists, since the county seat is a source of pride (and jobs) to the city involved.
Arkansas is the only state to specify the pronunciation of its name by law (AR-kan-saw).
References
External links
Official State website Arkansas State Code (the state statutes of Arkansas) Arkansas State Databases – Annotated list of searchable databases produced by Arkansas state agencies and compiled by the Government Documents Roundtable of the American Library Association. Arkansas State Facts Official State tourism website The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture Energy & Environmental Data for Arkansas U.S. Census Bureau 2000 Census of Population and Housing for Arkansas, U.S. Census Bureau USGS real-time, geographic, and other scientific resources of Arkansas }}
Category:States of the United States Category:States of the Confederate States of America Category:States and territories established in 1836 Category:States of the Southern United States
