Roughly 20% of California residents, approximately 5.9 million people, admitted to being worried very often or somewhat often about paying their mortgage or rent, according to UCLA’s newly published California Health Interview Survey (CHIS).
The latest findings, based on 2024 data, are up from an 18.8% share in 2023, an 18.2% share in 2022, and a 15.1% share in 2021. Among single parents with children, 36.2% said they worried very often or somewhat often about paying their mortgage or rent in 2024 — this is roughly triple the 12.8% share among married parents with children.
The survey found 15.6% of adults taking on an additional job or more work at their current job to cover their housing costs, while 14.2% stopped saving for retirement, 15.9% accumulated credit card debt, 12.2% cut back on healthy foods, and 5.8% cut back on health care.
“The California Health Interview Survey provides clear, quantifiable data showing that millions of Californians have been struggling to get by,” said Ninez Ponce, principal investigator of CHIS and director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. “This continues our history of CHIS providing freely accessible data about the vast, interconnected array of factors and conditions affecting the health of California’s large and diverse population.”
