"But Perl doesn't seem to like this at all" and "I also can't get the program to run." are very poor descriptions. In the future, give error messages, etc

You want the hash referenced by $people{$key}.
Two steps.
1. Start with the reference: $people{$key}.
2. Then dereference it: %{ $people{$key} }.

In reply to Re: Hash of hashes problem by ikegami
in thread Hash of hashes problem by lsteele

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