LOS ANGELES – (INT) – Los Angeles may be the ‘City of Angels’ but in real life, it leaves a lot to be desired.

UCLA has been polling Los Angeles County residents about their overall quality-of-life satisfaction, factoring in large-scale issues like housing costs, education, and transportation and traffic.

Key takeaways

• Worries about the high cost of living pushed Los Angeles Country residents’ satisfaction back to its lowest-ever level, the annual Quality of Life Index showed.

• The overall rating slipped two points from last year to 53, marking the second time in three years it came in below the survey’s 55 midpoint.

• The cost-of-living rating fell to 38 from 41, the lowest satisfaction score ever observed for any category in the survey.

Concerns over the high cost of living pushed the satisfaction of Los Angeles County residents back to its lowest-ever level, with renters feeling especially pessimistic about their futures, according to an annual UCLA survey.

The Quality of Life Index, or QLI, is a project of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs that measures county residents’ satisfaction in nine categories. The overall rating fell two points from last year to 53 on a scale from 10 to 100, marking the second time in three years it came in below the survey’s 55 midpoint since the index launched in 2016. That means a majority of respondents are dissatisfied with the overall quality of their lives.

Zev Yaroslavsky, a former county supervisor and now-director of the study at UCLA, said renters, who make up nearly half of survey respondents, are being disproportionately affected by the economic and inflationary pressures facing the region. More than half, or 59%, cited housing as the most important factor in their rating.

“Housing costs have gone up,” Yaroslavsky said. “And incomes have not gone up anywhere near commensurate with what’s happened to housing.”

While 61% of homeowners feel optimistic about their economic future in Los Angeles County, 51% of renters report being pessimistic. Only 23% of renters think they will be able to buy a home where they would want to live at some point in the future.

And, it’s not just Los Angeles. Three years ago, 70% of San Francisco residents surveyed said quality of life there had declined.

Story Date: May 12, 2024