And they’re both artificial thresholds created by interventionist policies.  realEstateTrent makes a great point, here:

Progressive policies, which shift decision-making to the blunt tool of government, create these unhealthy thresholds everywhere.  People stay on the public dole because they’d have to earn so much money for a job to be worthwhile that no job for which they’re qualified will suffice.  They stay in houses that aren’t a good fit because the current arrangement is so sweet that the incremental benefit of a change is too small.

In a healthy system, you want to reduce friction from one step to the next and match effort (or risk) to reward so parties have continual incentive to improve.  This is so obvious to anybody who thinks about it that one has to conclude the goal of those progressives who think about it is to stifle improvement for their own benefit.

Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop AI.