Overall
- Port St. Lucie
- 100.2
Diff -1.6 RPP
Port St. Lucie vs Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands
Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands is 1.6% less expensive than Port St. Lucie.
1.6% less expensive
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX is 1.6% less expensive than Port St. Lucie, FL on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 98.6 vs 100.2). A $100,000 salary in Port St. Lucie buys about the same as $98,405 in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands; the largest component gap is rents.
- Overall RPP 100.2 (Port St. Lucie) vs 98.6 (Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands)
- $100k in Port St. Lucie ≈ $98,405 purchasing power in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands
- Rents drives the gap (-9.1 RPP points)
RPP parity plate
Pair FL:TX 100.2→98.6
PHOTO-FINISH · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BENCH-CROSS · PP-PAR
- PHOTO-FINISH Photo finish
- CROSS-STATE FL × TX
- 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.
Port St. Lucie
100.2
Cost Index
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands
98.6
Cost Index
What This Comparison Actually Tells You
Port St. Lucie, FL and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX 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: Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands is 9.1 points lower. 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 Port St. Lucie corresponds to $98,405 in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands.
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 | Port St. Lucie | Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 100.2 | 98.6 | -1.6 |
| Goods | 96.2 | 100.6 | +4.4 |
| Services | 87.0 | 95.3 | +8.3 |
| Rents | 113.6 | 104.5 | -9.1 |
Visual Comparison
Overall
Port St. Lucie 100.2
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 98.6
Goods
Port St. Lucie 96.2
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 100.6
Services
Port St. Lucie 87.0
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 95.3
Rents
Port St. Lucie 113.6
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 104.5
Vertical line = national average (100)
How the Price Gap Changed
Port St. Lucie and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 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 | Port St. Lucie RPP | Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands RPP | Relative Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 101.1 | 99.4 | 1.7 points Port St. Lucie higher |
| 2012 | 99.2 | 100.0 | 0.9 points Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands higher |
| 2016 | 100.5 | 102.4 | 1.9 points Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands higher |
| 2020 | 98.6 | 100.0 | 1.3 points Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands higher |
| 2024 | 100.2 | 98.6 | 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 Port St. Lucie would need to be in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands for the same purchasing power:
| In Port St. Lucie | In Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $49,202 | $-798 |
| $75,000 | $73,803 | $-1,197 |
| $100,000 | $98,405 | $-1,595 |
| $150,000 | $147,607 | $-2,393 |
$ in Port St. Lucie = in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands
Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (100.2 → 98.6), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands more expensive than Port St. Lucie?
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands is 1.6% less expensive than Port St. Lucie. The overall cost index is 98.6 vs 100.2 (national average = 100).
What salary in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands equals $100K in Port St. Lucie?
A $100,000 salary in Port St. Lucie has the same purchasing power as $98,405 in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.
How do rents compare between Port St. Lucie and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands?
Rents in Port St. Lucie are indexed at 113.6 while Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands is at 104.5 (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.