Affordability Is Top of Mind for Californians

New CalChamber survey shows elected officials need to spend more time on costs and job creation

November 21, 2025 - California voters don’t think their representatives in Sacramento are spending enough time addressing some of the key issues related to making the state more affordable, according to a new Bold Decision survey commissioned by the California Chamber of Commerce.

The survey, conducted last month for the annual CalChamber Public Affairs Conference, found starkly different views of what voters are hearing about and what they want lawmakers to actually be doing.

“A lot of these things are basic needs,” pollster Adam Rosenblatt told attendees of the conference during his presentation on the survey results.

The most mentioned of the seemingly neglected issues was the rising cost of groceries — 91% of voters said elected officials should be spending more time on solving this problem. Close behind, 88% of those surveyed said not enough effort is being made to make the state more affordable for working Californians.

Strong concerns were also raised in the poll by the lack of time being spent on cutting taxes, dealing with costs related to things such as energy and rent, and fixing roads and bridges across the state.

“That’s really where the demand is” for action, said Rosenblatt.

Issues related to affordability have remained a concern for voters in the annual CalChamber poll since 2019. And this year’s survey revealed a disconnect — while 57% of voters said they had heard some or a lot about making the state affordable, far fewer believed it was getting the proper attention in the halls of the statehouse.

Those concerns were also voiced in questions asked about job creation in their communities across the state. Sixty-one percent of voters surveyed said few or almost no new jobs are being created — a stunning drop of 29 points (32% saying few or no new jobs) from responses to the same question in 2019.

And who’s responsible for that? The poll found that 59% of respondents believed either state or local policies have the greatest impact on job creation in their communities — and most of those people (39%) say local job creation is most affected by what happens in Sacramento.

METHODOLOGY: On behalf of CalChamber, national public opinion research firm Bold Decision conducted N=1,513 online interviews among California June 2026 primary election likely voters from Thursday, October 16 – Tuesday, October 21, 2025. The overall margin of error is +/- 2.51% at the 95% confidence interval and higher for subgroups.

A version of this article first appeared in CalChamber Alert