Overall
- Port St. Lucie
- 100.2
Diff +1.6 RPP
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands vs Port St. Lucie
Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Port St. Lucie is 1.6% more expensive than Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands.
1.6% more expensive
Port St. Lucie, FL is 1.6% more expensive than Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 100.2 vs 98.6). A $100,000 salary in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands buys about the same as $101,621 in Port St. Lucie; the largest component gap is rents.
- Overall RPP 98.6 (Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands) vs 100.2 (Port St. Lucie)
- $100k in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands ≈ $101,621 purchasing power in Port St. Lucie
- Rents drives the gap (+9.1 RPP points)
RPP parity plate
Pair TX:FL 98.6→100.2
PHOTO-FINISH · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BENCH-CROSS · PP-PAR
- PHOTO-FINISH Photo finish
- CROSS-STATE TX × FL
- SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
- BENCH-CROSS Benchmark cross
- PP-PAR PP near-par
Instrument codes from this pair's BEA Regional Price Parities (overall · goods · services · rents · national benchmark 100 · purchasing-power conversion), not a ranking or recommendation.
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands
98.6
Cost Index
Port St. Lucie
100.2
Cost Index
What This Comparison Actually Tells You
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX and Port St. Lucie, FL are a photo finish on overall price level, only 1.6 RPP points apart. A salary conversion is therefore a fine adjustment, not evidence of a fundamentally different cost regime.
Rents creates the largest separation: Port St. Lucie is 9.1 points higher. But services and goods move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.
Comparable population context is incomplete for this pair, so no market-scale explanation is inferred from the price indexes.
This route crosses the national benchmark: Port St. Lucie is above 100 while Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands is below it. That makes the move a change of price regime, not merely a rank swap.
For a housing-sensitive move, validate the rent gap first: HUD Fair Market Rent and the actual unit size can overturn what the blended index implies. On the BEA ratio alone, $100,000 in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands corresponds to $101,621 in Port St. Lucie.
Category Breakdown
Goods
- Port St. Lucie
- 96.2
Diff -4.4 RPP
Services
- Port St. Lucie
- 87.0
Diff -8.3 RPP
Rents
- Port St. Lucie
- 113.6
Diff +9.1 RPP
| Category | Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands | Port St. Lucie | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 98.6 | 100.2 | +1.6 |
| Goods | 100.6 | 96.2 | -4.4 |
| Services | 95.3 | 87.0 | -8.3 |
| Rents | 104.5 | 113.6 | +9.1 |
Visual Comparison
Overall
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 98.6
Port St. Lucie 100.2
Goods
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 100.6
Port St. Lucie 96.2
Services
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 95.3
Port St. Lucie 87.0
Rents
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 104.5
Port St. Lucie 113.6
Vertical line = national average (100)
How the Price Gap Changed
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands and Port St. Lucie share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap held broadly steady, moving from 1.7 to 1.6 RPP points. Port St. Lucie remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.
Goods changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 6.2 points between the first and latest shared releases (1.8 to 4.4 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.
| Release Year | Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands RPP | Port St. Lucie RPP | Relative Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 99.4 | 101.1 | 1.7 points Port St. Lucie higher |
| 2012 | 100.0 | 99.2 | 0.9 points Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands higher |
| 2016 | 102.4 | 100.5 | 1.9 points Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands higher |
| 2020 | 100.0 | 98.6 | 1.3 points Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands higher |
| 2024 | 98.6 | 100.2 | 1.6 points Port St. Lucie higher |
Annual BEA Regional Price Parity releases; a higher index means a higher price level relative to the national average of 100. Selected years shown from the full shared series.
Salary Equivalents
What a salary in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands would need to be in Port St. Lucie for the same purchasing power:
| In Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands | In Port St. Lucie | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $50,811 | +$811 |
| $75,000 | $76,216 | +$1,216 |
| $100,000 | $101,621 | +$1,621 |
| $150,000 | $152,432 | +$2,432 |
$ in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands = in Port St. Lucie
Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (98.6 → 100.2), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Port St. Lucie more expensive than Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands?
Port St. Lucie is 1.6% more expensive than Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands. The overall cost index is 100.2 vs 98.6 (national average = 100).
What salary in Port St. Lucie equals $100K in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands?
A $100,000 salary in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands has the same purchasing power as $101,621 in Port St. Lucie. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.
How do rents compare between Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands and Port St. Lucie?
Rents in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands are indexed at 104.5 while Port St. Lucie is at 113.6 (national average = 100). Port St. Lucie has higher rents.
Data sources
- BEA Regional Price Parities (RPP), the cost-of-living indices shown on this page
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS), gross-rent observations behind the rents component
- BLS Consumer Price Index (CPI), goods and services price relatives
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), labor-driven services component
- HUD Fair Market Rents (FMR), 40th-percentile rent cross-reference
Every figure on PlainCost is rendered directly from BEA Regional Price Parity source data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, our changelog, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-11. Rankings measure the published cost-of-living index only; we don't recommend where to live or rate any metro's quality of life.