Yes, at the lower end of those salaries, you have to do things (and this is one single example btw) like have roommates, which drastically increases your housing instability. Why? Because you have to rely on your roommates' ability to pay rent. If they don't, what happens? You lose your PrIvIlIgE to live there! Most places in the US do not have protections for this. So you can try really hard to find another roommate, but you have a very limited amount of time to do so (basically until the next rent payment). So then you get evicted. Now your ability to find a new place to live is damaged because you have a permanent "evicted" mark on your credit/tenant report. Oh, and of course, the landlord can go to court and try to get the court to force you to pay the remainder of the rent or at least continue to pay the rent until they lazily find a new tenant. So now you're financially damaged too. There are so many footguns like this in the US that people, on HN especially, are ignorant to. Imagine trying to keep a job while also dealing with all these shenanigans. Can you even get time off work to go to the court hearing? If you don't, the landlord can get a default judgement.

Oh and sorry because this is HN and people will automatically assume I mean owning the property and renting rooms out to others, I mean both people are renters in this case.