The bourgeoisie realized decades ago that by making already high-priced goods and services even more expensive, they could create a system of debt able to control the proletariat. This system is based on the foundations of indentured indebtedness, debt avoidance, and debt gatekeeping.
Before the proletariat even begins to produce, the claws of debt are set into them. College tuition is inordinately expensive, forcing many aspiring college students to take loans in order to pay for it. Burdened with massive debt right out of college, they're forced to immediately join the workforce and produce for the bourgeoisie, who take advantage of their desperation with gusto.
Throughout their careers of production, the proletariat is coerced by a fear of debt to continue producing for the bourgeoisie. Healthcare is inordinately expensive, forcing people to get health insurance, mostly from their employer. Knowing that they are always one injury or diagnosis away from lifelong debt, the proletariat is cowed into accepting their exploitation at the hands of the bourgeoisie for most of their lives.
The bourgeoisie also use debt to make the proletariat's attempts at independence from them as difficult as possible. Real estate is inordinately expensive, forcing aspiring homeowners to get loans in order to pay for it. Acquiring these loans require high credit scores to “prove” the likelihood of debt repayment, locking many of the proletariat interested in ending their dependence to their bourgeoisie landlords from being able to do so and keeping the vast majority stuck paying ever-increasing rents.
The inability for the proletariat to afford the rising cost of living imposed upon them by the bourgeoisie is not a mistake. In fact, it is a feature of capitalist society. The system of debt was purposefully created to solve this problem they purposefully caused to their own benefit. It is the closest a society can come to such an extent of control over its members while still calling itself “free”. This control is why they resist all attempts to uproot the system. It's why they fight against student loan reform that would free college graduates from indentured servitude. It's why they fight against free healthcare that would remove the financial blackmail suffered by workers under employee health insurance. It's why they fight against rent reform that would nullify their efforts to limit housing independence. The fact that our country remains the richest in the world while a significant portion of our population has a negative net worth is damning proof of the proletariat's exploitation by the bourgeoisie and capitalist society.