A decade ago, Los Angeles County was facing serious economic and social challenges, but residents felt “generally lukewarm” about their quality of life.
But lukewarm turned out to be L.A.’s high point.
As the years went on, Angelenos have continued to report falling satisfaction across key indicators — in particular, cost of living, traffic and education. This year, the county’s overall quality-of-life ranking dropped to the lowest point in one survey’s 11-year history.
This year’s record-low Quality of Life Index, a metric compiled by UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, builds on a decline that accelerated rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic and has struggled to rebound, as L.A. County residents have faced several disasters and crises — destabilizing immigration raids and devastating wildfires — on top of some of the world’s highest housing costs.
“We’ve been through a lot in the last five years: COVID, increases in the cost of living, immigration sweeps, and the Altadena and Palisades fires. [They all] have taken their toll on virtually every aspect of our lives,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, which conducts the poll. “People haven’t had a chance to come out of the water and take a breath.”
Cost of living remains the most important factor in determining residents’ quality of life, a measure that fell from 2025 rankings, the survey found. Respondents — a representative selection of 1,400 L.A. County residents surveyed in March — said their cost of living outlook was most influenced by housing affordability, but the cost of utilities, groceries and taxes was increasingly mentioned this year.
Almost all survey categories saw rankings decline compared to last year, with six categories hitting historic lows since the survey began in 2016: education, transportation/traffic, jobs and the economy, public safety, your neighborhood, and relations between different races, ethnicities and religion.
The index’s 2026 score came in at 52, three points below its midpoint of 55. The index is derived from how surveyed residents rate their satisfaction in nine quality-of-life categories and about 40 sub-categories, while also rating the relative importance of each measure.
The index has fallen within the 50s since the poll’s inception. The rankings the first two years were highest—at 59—and steadily dropped in subsequent polls. The index in 2025 was 53, but every drop in the index — even by one — “is huge,” Yaroslavsky said.
Yaroslavsky said he thinks the declines this year are closely tied to the lingering ongoing effects and lingering anxieties — financial and otherwise — from the Trump administration’s uptick in immigration raids and the Eaton and Palisades fires.
Nearly one-third of residents in the survey said they were worried that they or someone close to them could be deported, while 15% said they knew someone who was detained or deported.
When it comes to the aftermath of the January 2025 fires, which destroyed much of Altadena and Pacific Palisades, about 1 in 5 residents said they continue to experience financial losses tied to the disaster. About a quarter of residents reported losing income due to the fires.
More than half of respondents said they were unsatisfied with wildfire recovery efforts, while many worried about how they might respond to the next disaster or crisis: almost half said they were not confident they would have access to the necessary financial resources to do so.
The survey also asked voters about the upcoming mayoral election, finding that the race remains “highly unsettled,” with 40% of surveyed voters still undecided.
Of decided voters, Mayor Karen Bass led the contenders with 25% support, which the report said indicates that Bass will be “likely to qualify for one of the two spots in the November general election, but the identity of her opponent and her actual prospects in November are unclear at present.”
Despite all the challenges and negative findings, the survey did interestingly find that a majority — albeit a slim majority — of residents still found themselves generally optimistic about their economic future in L.A. County, a finding that has remained relatively consistent during the last three annual surveys.
The report also found a strong majority — above 80% of respondents — believe that living in L.A. offers them access to opportunities for “a good life,” which the survey defined as people’s opportunities to experience the outdoors, diverse groups of people and arts and culture.
“I think people still have hope and still think things can get better,” Yaroslavsky said. He didn’t want to overstate that finding, especially since about half of people reported being pessimistic about their future, but he hopes people can capitalize on that optimism.
“There’s a lot of resiliency in L.A., … especially in the immigrant population,” Yaroslavsky said. “There’s still a majority of people who see a future for themselves here, economically, and that’s what’s going to keep this region going.”
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