This reader's frustration is exactly the kind of problem that should not exist in 2025. They know how to solve it in Python. They can do it in JASP. But they are trapped in Excel, wrestling with nested lookups and threshold logic, trying to force a tool designed for static tables to do something it was never built to handle. The real issue here is not the formula. It is that the formula should not be necessary.
The user has household size and annual income. They want to match against HUD's Area Median Income chart and return a category, extremely low, very low, or low, based on which income threshold the household falls closest to without exceeding it. That is a straightforward conditional lookup. In a modern spreadsheet, you would describe the logic in plain language and let the system handle the matching. Instead, this user has rebuilt the chart in Excel multiple times, trying different formula combinations, and still cannot get the automation they need. That is not a skill gap. That is a product gap.
What this story reveals is the distance between what people actually need from spreadsheets and what traditional tools still force them to do. The user's data is clean. The rules are clear. The output is simple. Yet the process of connecting them requires manual workarounds, fragile formulas, and a tolerance for complexity that has nothing to do with the task itself. An AI-native spreadsheet would look at the household size, scan the relevant row in the HUD table, find the income bracket, and return the correct label. No nested IFs. No INDEX-MATCH gymnastics. No re-entering the chart every time the data updates.
The reader's experience is not unique. It is the daily reality for anyone who manages housing data, eligibility workflows, or compliance reporting. They are not asking for a revolution. They are asking for a tool that respects their time and matches their intent. That expectation is reasonable. And the fact that it still feels out of reach says more about the tools than the people using them. The solution is not a better Excel trick. It is a spreadsheet that understands what you mean, not just what you typed.