Please, show me one instance of someone in the US being arrested for fraud because they lied about their income. Show me a real world example of this “stress test” you mentioned.
The same could be said of people who meet the income requirements for any given residence. Just because someone can pay rent on paper doesn’t mean they can actually pay rent. Doubly so for credit checks. Someone with a low score isn’t necessarily in an unmanageable amount of debt and someone with a high score isn’t necessarily someone that has a manageable amount of debt.
If you’re going to commit fraud in order to secure a rental then you need to go in with the understanding that it’s important to know what you can actually afford. The same goes when you’re doing it through “legitimate” means. If you can’t pay the bills, then you lose your house. Its the same conclusion whether or not you lied about your income.
You’re not going to go to jail, they’re not going to check. And given the situation a lot of people are finding themselves in right now, it’s pretty shitty to not empathize with people who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, appealing to “the legality” of what their doing. As if the laws and people who wrote them aren’t responsible for the fact that people have to resort to fraud in the first place.
The fact that you’re either unwilling or incapable of understanding this shows how little you think of people who are struggling to make ends meet. Your constant resistance to the idea of people doing what they need to do to acquire shelter results in you essentially saying “if you have to lie to get a roof over your head, then you just shouldn’t have a place to live”. Which is a pretty fucked up stance to take.