Los Angeles residents’ quality of life has reached a historic low, UCLA researchers said at a Wednesday event.
Zev Yaroslavsky, the director of the Luskin School of Public Affairs’ Los Angeles Initiative, announced the results of the 11th Los Angeles County Quality of Life Index at the school’s eighth-annual summit, which was held in the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center.
The QLI is a yearly report by the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies that surveys LA County residents on how they perceive the quality of their lives across nine categories. It also measures the importance of each issue to them, according to the final report of the survey’s findings.
The index’s midpoint rests at 55 on a scale of 10 to 100 for measuring quality of life and each individual category, according to the report.
This year’s survey reported a QLI of 52 – the lowest index score since the program began in 2016, Yaroslavsky said. The QLI began trending downward in 2021, he added.
Respondents are asked some of the same quality of life questions year-to-year, as well as a number of questions focused on current issues, Yaroslavsky said. This year’s survey asked about how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and wildfire recovery in Los Angeles had impacted residents’ quality of life, he added.
Yaroslavsky said in an interview he believes the pandemic began this downward trend, but other events have since contributed.
“The pandemic itself – the increasing cost of housing, tariffs that have caused inflation like crazy in the supermarkets, and from A to Z, the fires, the disasters that we’ve had – and now the (ICE) sweeps,” he said in the interview. “It’s just been one gut punch after another, and it takes its toll on people.”
Other findings included a seven-point decrease in satisfaction with education since 2025, a six-point decrease in satisfaction with transportation and traffic and a three-point decrease in satisfaction with the cost of living, which brought these categories to scores of 42, 47 and 38, respectively, according to the report.
Overall, scores decreased in eight of the nine categories, with the one exception being health care, which remained the same as in 2025, Yaroslavsky added.
Respondents ranked the cost of living as the most important issue for quality of life in LA County, followed by public safety and health care, according to the report.
When asked about the impacts of last year’s wildfires, about 25% of respondents reported a loss in income due to the fires, and 70% of those respondents said their income has yet to recover, according to the presentation.
In the wake of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, which ramped up in Los Angeles in June 2025, 31% of respondents reported being worried that they or someone close to them will be deported. This rose to 38% among Latino respondents, according to the report.
However, the majority of respondents also reported that they were optimistic about their economic future in LA, Yaroslavsky said.
“I’m frankly surprised that so many Angelenos continue to feel like this is the place that they want to be,” said Miguel Santana, the president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to improve quality of life in LA, in a panel. “For us, it really is a reflection that we’re not giving up, that Angelenos are resilient, that they’re committed to making it work.”
Kyle Winterboer, a UCLA alumnus, said he believes students would enjoy attending the summit, adding that the event attracts many interesting attendees.
The survey provides a roadmap for policymakers and organizers to serve LA residents going forward, Santana said in an interview.
“What makes LA special is that people are connected, and they love the diversity of living here,” Santana said. “They love knowing people who are not like them, and this last year 2025 really was an expression of love for each other and that we have to stick together.”
Comments are closed.