[TeMPOraL]

> Sometimes, those lines really screw people over.

Another angle is how they affect the living. Plenty of young adults delay moving out from their parents, or starting a career, because changes in combined household income would cross one of those magic threshold, and ending up screwing the parents and younger siblings for life.

Such delaying may not be as immediately critical to the person, but it alters the course of their lives in significant ways.