Given that $cntr is just a counter that is incremented for each data element of your list, you should probably use an array of hashes, rather than a reference to an hash of hashes. For example you could change your main procedure as follows (untested): 
sub getPeople {
     my ( $id, $first, $last, $age );
     my $file = 'list.txt';
     my @people; # using directly an array
     # my $cntr; -- now useless
     open( LIST, "< $file" ) or die "Can't open $file : $!";
     while (my $row = <LIST> ) {
          # $cntr++; -- now no longer useful
          my ($id, $first, $last, $age ) = split( /\s/, $row );
          $id = (split( /=/, $id ))[1];
          $first = (split( /=/, $first ))[1];
          $last = (split( /=/, $last ))[1];
          $age = (split( /=/, $age ))[1];
          push @people, {
                          'id' => "$id",
                          'first' => "$first",
                          'last' => "$last",
                          'age' => "$age"
                        };
     }
}

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I think that getting the individual values to be stored in the hashes could be made significantly simpler, but that's not what you asked for, I don't want to get off-topic at this point. If you're interested, other monks and myself can of course help you on that.

In reply to Re: Having an Issue updating hash of hashes by Laurent_R
in thread Having an Issue updating hash of hashes by perlguyjoe

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