Scott Stringer’s job is to add up the city’s money to see if it’s all there, but when it comes to understanding the housing market, he can’t put two and two together.

That’s clear from the city comptroller’s new report on the burden apartment security deposits place on tenants. It estimates that 300,000 households shelled out a total of $507 million for these deposits in 2016.

Stringer’s “study” starts fine, rightly noting that city housing is “among the most expensive” in the nation. In 2017, Manhattan’s costs were five times higher than in the “typical” US city. As a result, security deposits, which are generally linked to monthly rent, are also high.

But Gotham’s housing market is also among the most highly regulated in America. Can’t Stringer make the connection?

Fact is, far more rental units here (61 percent, the Rent Guidelines Board reported last year) fall under rent-regulation than don’t (39 percent). And rents in regulated units are usually way below market rates.

That, notably, creates incentives for tenants to hold on to regulated units as long as possible, keeping them off the market and restricting the housing supply. Onerous regs can also deter construction of new units, further choking the supply.

Those aren’t the only factors driving up housing costs. But a thorough (or, at least, honest) analyst would admit that government intrusion itself has played a role in driving up rents. Yet Stringer is pushing for more government involvement.

To be fair, his ideas aren’t wildly radical in themselves. He’d limit deposits to the equivalent of one month’s rent for one-year leases (which is often the custom now) and suggests payment plans and security-deposit “insurance,” so tenants wouldn’t have to shell out a large, lump-sum fee right up front. That all sounds fine.

But why get government involved? Indeed, the market already is dealing with some of these issues. Certain high-end buildings, for example, already require security deposits that are less than a month’s rent, and some don’t require them at all.

At the same time, landlords, as Stringer himself notes, sometimes ask for two or three months’ rent for tenants with poor credit records. If they can no longer collect that upfront, they may opt not to rent to such people at all, even if tjeu can afford higher deposits. Both the tenant and the landlord would lose out.

Stringer, of course, is a run-of-the-mill “progressive” who thinks government can solve every problem. But again, government meddling helped break Gotham’s housing market in the first place. It would be folly to let it do so again.