This month, UCLA Luskin School released its 2025 Los Angeles County Quality of Life Index (QLI) survey. The results reveal a population in America’s largest county that continues to hold deep-seated frustration with the high cost of living and confronts new challenges presented by the January 2025 wildfires, the newest round of threats to immigrants, and the persistent problem of homelessness. The QLI is based on a survey of 1,400 Los Angeles County residents conducted February 23rd - March 9th, 2025. it features both an overall satisfaction “rating" and also helped illuminate the opinions and feelings of residents on several timely issues that are not included in the QLI Itself. Find the full report online, here.
"...this year, cost of living has soared to its highest salience level ever: On average, respondents chose it as the most important category affecting their quality of life, over all other categories, three-quarters of the time."
Key takeaways:
- This year, the impact of the cost of living on quality of life in Los Angeles County has soared to its highest salience level ever.
- More than two-fifths of residents surveyed said that they knew someone personally affected by the recent fires. Millions more have been touched in myriad ways across geographic, economic and racial lines.
- 44% of county residents are worried that they, a member of their family, or a friend could be deported by federal authorities.
Deep-seated frustration with the high cost of living remains a main concern in Los Angeles, America’s largest county, as it confronts new challenges presented by the recent wildfires, the Trump administration’s threats to immigrants and the persistent problem of homelessness, according to an annual UCLA survey released today.
The Quality of Life Index, or QLI — a project of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs — measures county residents’ satisfaction in nine categories. This year’s overall rating of 53 out of 100 matches last year’s lowest ever in the now 10 years of the QLI’s existence.
Despite the static score, the underlying elements that contribute to the overall score have unquestionably been shifting over the last 10 years.
According to Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative, the overall positives that can push the score higher — particularly the physical environment, diversity and tolerance in the region — are, to some degree, overwhelmed by the negatives respondents believe are even more important, particularly the high cost of living.
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Cost of living
Cost of living has always been an issue of great concern among survey respondents, along with job security and the state of the economy. However, this year, cost of living has soared to its highest salience level ever: On average, respondents chose it as the most important category affecting their quality of life, over all other categories, three-quarters of the time. This is a major contributing factor to why the overall QLI score remains unchanged from last year.
“The overall satisfaction score on our QLI index is stuck for one main reason — the impact of the high cost of living. Those concerns were the highest in terms of importance of any category we’ve measured in the last decade. And cost of living continues to be the lowest rating category in terms of satisfaction,” said Paul Maslin, a public opinion and polling expert with Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3 Research) who has overseen the QLI since its inception.
Read the full Summary online, here
Find the Report online, here.
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