In the UK where I live, we have a Living Wage Initiative that companies can sign up to if they offer a living wage to all employees. This is a wage that is set at a higher rate than the government's statutory minimum wage. The company that I work for signed up to this and it is genuinely felt and appreciated by the employees. I think your calculations may be a bit off on the increase from $0.75 to $7.25 as this would be an increase of 867% not 162%, so actually a lot closer to the 1000% increase in rents that you mention, but I get that wages are lagging and that this is causing major issues for people desperate to get onto the property ladder in the U.S. In the UK we have a different issue that arose in that between Government incentivisation of buying property through a scrapping of stamp duty (taxes on house sales) for houses under a certain value up until Oct-21 which led to heightened demand for property by buyers, which in turn increased prices...AND the government simultaneously introducing laws to increase taxation on landlords for owned multiple properties, the landlords flooded the market with properties which initially pushed prices down, buyers rushed in to purchase at zero stamp duty which pushed the price back up again. Renters started being given notice to leave their rentals and find other accommodation as housing was sold from underneath their feet, and then they couldn't find replacement rentals because of the constriction of the rental market, but property prices were becoming beyond reach. I personally know of a number of people who were almost made homeless as a result of this government fiasco. It's a conundrum for sure. How strange that the USA and the UK appear to be adopting divergent strategies on housing at the moment, and neither approach seems to be working for either government or their citizens. The world has truly gone bonkers. You make some sound points in your article about the crisis that the US housing market finds itself in and about the dire nature of low wage levels and what that is doing for people's ability to live !PIZZA