Sacramento - California lawmakers came to the Capitol to vow to take decisive action after voters issued a clear message in November saying that rising cost of living remained the most concerned issue.

“Our task is urgent and clear,” Parliament President Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) told lawmakers at the 2024-2025 legislative session in early December. “We must draw a new path forward. It first focuses on affordability.”

Voters in the state are increasingly pessimistic about its financial future, according to a new poll by the UC Berkeley Institute for Administration co-sponsored by the Times, despite the statute’s proposals to legislation help make California a more affordable place to live. Nearly half of California voters are worse than last year, while 54% have less hope for their economic well-being.

The poll found that when state leaders are asked to address the most important issues this year, the cost of living, housing affordability and homelessness rank first — far beyond the focus on crime and public safety, taxation and immigration.

"The first question is an economic issue. It's the cost of living," said IGS poll director Mark DiCamillo. "The Democrats are all Republicans who agree on this."

DiCamillo said Californians have increased drastically about their future and current financial well-being after President Trump moved back to the White House in January. Within months, Trump announced new tariffs on goods imported from countries that were imported from around the world, setting turmoil in the global economy, and his administration began to cut federal agencies and plans.

The shift among voters is driven primarily by partisan allegiance, with Democratic voters lending more than the Republicans’ difference in loans in California.

In August, 46% of Democratic voters in the state were optimistic about their financial situation before Trump was elected. According to the poll, in April, only 9% of people felt this way. Optimism also sets the voters declared “no party preference”, but to a much smaller extent. Among Republicans, only 9% were hopeful before Trump was elected, while April rose to 57%.

"I've never seen it before," DiCamillo said. "I've been polling for more than 40 years in California, and everything seems to have partying for the last five years or so. If you ask people, 'Is it sunny outside?' Democrats will say one thing, Republicans will say (another thing).

In Sacramento, the Democratic-led Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom knew that coping with the high cost of living in California was a must and that not doing enough to address issues of voters’ concerns could have consequences. But any hope for rapid economic relief is lost due to the slow, deliberate political process of members of Congress.

Democrats have introduced a series of new bills to save billions of dollars in utilities in California, limit extra costs for renters, and cut the traditional tape festival for building permits to target residents' growing financial burdens.

However, the pending bill is not expected to make a huge shift in the long-term economic issues that California cares most about, such as the housing affordability crisis, homelessness and the general cost of living.

James Gallagher, the Republican leader of Yuba, said the financial struggles of many Californians were the result of years of misleading, free leadership and rejected the latest Democratic efforts in Sacramento to fix the loss because it was too little and too late.

“I don’t do a lot with most of the bill readings,” Gallagher told the Times. Most of them solve marginal problems, not meat that solves problems, he said. “In order to actually do some affordability,[Democrats]have to re-examine their previous ideas.”

Trump's victory in November was partly seen as his campaign promise to address the high prices and economic uncertainty many Americans face. Economic turmoil has been the main reason why many people feel pessimistic today over the past five years.

Jerry Nickelsburg, a faculty member of UCLA Anderson Forecast, said fiscal policies aimed at making household budgets livelihoods during COVID-19 lead to higher inflation and push prices faster than usual. Inflation has declined since 2020, but voters have noticed a significant increase in daily spending, such as natural gas and groceries.

During this period, workers' wage growth has not maintained pace. Sarah Bohn, vice president of the California Institute of Public Policy (PPIC), said food, beverage and energy prices rose 28% compared to before the 19th pandemic.

"We feel that in pumps, utilities and grocery stores," Born said on a parliamentary committee in late March. She said inflation has reduced wage growth by 26% to 2.9% since January 2020.

"For me, this is all the facts we need to know, why are Californians financially frustrated. Earning 26% of their salary, but feeling like stepping on water at the end of the day? It's very frustrating."

California is one of the most expensive states in the U.S. to buy or rent a home – the crisis of rising housing costs and rents has worsened over the past decade, as well as some policies, such as the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA, have been killing new developments since the 1970s.

According to U.S. census data, California rents are 50% higher than the national median. In California, one in six middle-class renters now spend more than half of their housing income, according to the nonprofit research center PPIC.

For years, Democrats have tried to dissolve loopholes in existing laws and promote new developments to address housing shortages. According to PPIC analysis, high prices promote a growing trend for homeless and Californians to cheaper pastures in neighboring countries than greener pastures.

Senator Scott Wiener (D-san Francisco) told The Times that California did make it difficult for itself to build enough housing to kill itself. ”

At this session, Vienna introduced Senate Bill 677, which failed earlier this month on the Senate Housing Committee - the bill could expand SB 9, the “Duplex Act” of 2021, which allows people to divide their single families into two lots and add three units to the property. The commission did propose another Wiener bill, SB 79, which proposed allowing four to seven-story houses to be built near large bus stops.

SB 681, part of the Senate Democratic Caucus' affordability package and introduced by Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), proposes several measures that address the housing crisis: quadrupling the renter's tax credit for the first time in decades, cutting out additional fees renters pay for owning pets and other junk fees not listed in a rental agreement, addressing zombie mortgages — home loans appearing years, sometimes the debtor believes the loan has been forgiven decades later - setting the homeowners association fine at $100 and making the Permit Act and Housing Crisis Act permanent.

Other legislation supported by Democratic leaders will simplify applications for new housing developments, prohibit rent payments from additional costs, and expand affordable housing for farm workers.

SB 254, chairman of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), is "the most ambitious effort of the Legislature, yet to control the rising energy costs and put taxpayers first," he told members of the committee last week. The bill, to some extent, forced the California Utilities Commission to provide public statements to prove any approved hikes, also required investor-owned utilities to fund $15 billion in mitigation measures to mitigate wildfires and connect customers to the grid.

The legislation was opposed by San Diego Gas and Electric, among others, who said it did not address the fundamental problem that led to rising interest rates and could be unconstitutional.

California Republicans have offered their own solutions, including a Gallagher bill that would force the Utilities Commission to reduce power rates by 30%, and AB 1443 is sponsored by compilation R-Home Castillo (R-Home Gardens), which would make earned tips tax-free. California Republicans also enact a bill that expands tax credits for renters, similar to the measures in Wahab's SB 681.

Gallagher criticized the new parliamentary committee for focusing on housing, child care, food aid for those in need, and reviewed the state’s push for low-carbon and renewable alternatives, believing that discussing issues rather than taking quick action is deaf.

"Californians don't need more government committees, they need practical actions to cut costs. Legislative Democrats have spent decades making it unaffordable for our state," Gallagher said. "Faced changed, but political parties and broken ideas remain the same - stopping housing, raising taxes and promoting the costs of working families."

Times worker Phil Willon contributed to the report.