Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, It's Michael Lewis here. I'm nearly finished with
Speaker 1: the next season of Against the Rules. It's like last
Speaker 1: season in some ways, I'm talking with people about inequality
Speaker 1: in American society and what it's doing to our idea
Speaker 1: of fairness. But this time we'll be telling the story
Speaker 1: through the lens of coaching and coaches, the edge that
Speaker 1: coaches can give people, and who doesn't get that edge
Speaker 1: in our society. As we all know, things are not
Speaker 1: normal right now. That's why we're bringing you this extra
Speaker 1: bonus episode. I guess I should first say I'm still
Speaker 1: alive and so far disease free. But I've been doing
Speaker 1: a lot of interviews lately with people who've dedicated their
Speaker 1: careers to helping other people. This is an especially good
Speaker 1: time to be talking to people like this, So you're
Speaker 1: going to get to hear a couple of their conversations
Speaker 1: right now. Once with someone you already met before in
Speaker 1: last seasons Against the Rules, the teacher Katie Highland. She
Speaker 1: happens to live in the containment zone that it's now
Speaker 1: New Rochelle, New York, so she's been on lockdown more
Speaker 1: than most of us in the United States first, though,
Speaker 1: here's a guy whose work is also really relevant right now.
Speaker 1: His name is Jimmy Chen, and he left behind a
Speaker 1: fancy career in Silicon Valley to build an app, which
Speaker 1: he's called fresh Ebt. It helps people on food stamps. Well,
Speaker 1: it's actually formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Speaker 1: They're about forty million Americans who access this program. They
Speaker 1: get funds once a month on a card that looks
Speaker 1: more like a gift card than an ATM card, and
Speaker 1: most of the state programs don't have an easy way
Speaker 1: to let people know how much is left on their card.
Speaker 1: They don't even know their balances, so it's hard to
Speaker 1: budget and make smart decisions. That's a problem at any time,
Speaker 1: but it's a huge problem right now with so much
Speaker 1: food and secure in our economy. And Jimmy's got a solution. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Jimmy. Hey Jimmy, thanks for joining me. Hi, Michael, So,
Speaker 1: are there peculiar anxieties that you're sort of seeing in
Speaker 1: response as virus in the population that you serve? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we've seen a lot of people concerned about
Speaker 1: not being able to purchase more toilet paper, and I
Speaker 1: think that's a thing that you know, people are often
Speaker 1: cracking jokes about in the general population, why are you
Speaker 1: stocking up on toilet paper right now? But when we
Speaker 1: talk to our users about that specific situation, they actually
Speaker 1: have a very real need there. For a lot of
Speaker 1: our users, they can't afford to purchase things like toilet
Speaker 1: paper in bulk, and so they are purchasing toilet paper
Speaker 1: every time they go grocery shopping or on a very
Speaker 1: frequent cadence. And so if the grocery store is sold
Speaker 1: out of toilet paper, that's a real problem because they
Speaker 1: don't have a backup supply that they can use, and
Speaker 1: so a lot of people are really worried about that.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting because no one has explained to me
Speaker 1: why that shelf and no other shelf in the grocery
Speaker 1: stores that maybe the disinfectant shelf is empty. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know which way the flywheels started on this
Speaker 1: particular one, but I know that for low income folks
Speaker 1: who maybe haven't had the resources to go out and
Speaker 1: stock up on toilet paper, it is a different level
Speaker 1: of scary. Okay, so let me back up a minute.
Speaker 1: Let's just start a little bit about you and what
Speaker 1: you do like what your company is sure. So I'm
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of Propel. We're a technology company
Speaker 1: that aims to help people who are low income the
Speaker 1: United States to navigate safety net programs like the food
Speaker 1: Stamp program and to improve their overall financial health. We
Speaker 1: build a free smartphone app called the fresh Ebt app
Speaker 1: that helps somebody who gets food stamp benefits or snap
Speaker 1: benefits on an EBT card to see how much they
Speaker 1: have left in benefits, but also to connect to a
Speaker 1: variety of different social services to save money and to
Speaker 1: find different ways that they can earn more cash. Are
Speaker 1: you already seeing an uptick in users in response to
Speaker 1: what's going on in the economy right now? We are.
Speaker 1: We're seeing about thirty percent more usage each day than
Speaker 1: we normally do, and to be clear, those are for
Speaker 1: people who are already using fresh Ebt. So we have
Speaker 1: also seen a lot of stats about how enrollment in
Speaker 1: the food Stamp program has gone up dramatically over the
Speaker 1: past week, but the way that the food Stamp program
Speaker 1: is actually structured that those enrollments don't become actual cases
Speaker 1: usually for about a month, and so we would see
Speaker 1: that a month later as people enroll in the program.
Speaker 1: So you're already saying it up. But what do you
Speaker 1: imagine is going to happen over the next few months. Well,
Speaker 1: I think there are a couple of different populations that
Speaker 1: are worth thinking about here. The first are the people
Speaker 1: that are already getting food stamps now. So you know,
Speaker 1: there are forty million Americans prior to COVID and all
Speaker 1: of this crazy pandemic stuff. There are forty million Americans
Speaker 1: that we're already struggling to make ends meet in a
Speaker 1: normal economy. These are the folks that are already using
Speaker 1: the food stamp program. The majority of them are working
Speaker 1: and have children and just trying to pay the bills.
Speaker 1: So those are the people who use fresh EBT now,
Speaker 1: and they're facing a very specific set of challenges as
Speaker 1: this is kind of the financial shock that is really
Speaker 1: putting them behind. There's a separate set of Americans that
Speaker 1: we can also talk about, the people that are probably
Speaker 1: one or two tiers of income higher than that and
Speaker 1: maybe have a little bit of safetiscussion but not a ton,
Speaker 1: and as a result of the economic shock here, they're
Speaker 1: the ones who are newly applying for the program. So
Speaker 1: I think those two groups are going to have different
Speaker 1: types of outcomes but face some of the same challenges.
Speaker 1: But how big is that kind of food stamp adjacent population. Well,
Speaker 1: there's that popular stat that forty percent of Americans can
Speaker 1: afford a four hundred dollars shock. Right now, these are
Speaker 1: all of the Americans that are living paycheck to paycheck,
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily the case that those folks are
Speaker 1: all very low income. You know, you can be making
Speaker 1: seventy or eighty or ninety thousand dollars a year and
Speaker 1: still be in that population of not being able to
Speaker 1: afford a four hundred dollars shock. As we've spoken to
Speaker 1: our user base about what past week has been like,
Speaker 1: we have heard from people that eighty eight percent of
Speaker 1: people who get food stamp benefits and we're working have
Speaker 1: had their hours cut or lost their jobs entirely. And
Speaker 1: of those eighty eight percent, the average amount in job
Speaker 1: earnings that has been lost is five hundred dollars. So
Speaker 1: when we talk about this four hundred dollars shock that
Speaker 1: was going to send people over the cliff, that shock
Speaker 1: has happened, right, So it makes what you do even
Speaker 1: more important. Yeah, that's right, I think you know, broader
Speaker 1: than Propel. You know, the reason I started Propel was
Speaker 1: this notion that we have a safety net here in
Speaker 1: the United States, that people who go through financial hardship
Speaker 1: have a variety of resources provided by the public sector
Speaker 1: and the private sector, and that those resources are aimed
Speaker 1: to help people in financial need to get back on
Speaker 1: their feet, and so more broadly, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: this whole COVID nineteen mess is a real test of
Speaker 1: our safety net in the United States of not just
Speaker 1: programs like food stamps, or programs like Medicaid and unemployment
Speaker 1: and so on that also have to pick up the
Speaker 1: slack and are seeing tons of more traffic these days
Speaker 1: as people are looking to these safety net programs to
Speaker 1: help them to get through this really unusual time. How
Speaker 1: long did you start the company. I started the company
Speaker 1: about five and a half years ago. How did this happen? Well,
Speaker 1: I grew up in a loving and supportive family that
Speaker 1: also experienced a financial shock and had trouble putting food
Speaker 1: on the table. I think, like most American families, we
Speaker 1: were sort of on the edge financially, and then when
Speaker 1: my dad lost his job when I was about ten,
Speaker 1: you know, we had a few years of just really
Speaker 1: tough financial times. I was fortunate to go to college
Speaker 1: on a full scholarship on financial need and then spent
Speaker 1: a few years working in different software companies in Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley after I graduated from college. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that just really struck me after spending years working
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and these tech companies is just how
Speaker 1: people solve the problems that they understand. And that's by
Speaker 1: and large the reason why so many products that come
Speaker 1: out of Silicon Valley are solving the problems of twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty year old men. Yes, who live in cities
Speaker 1: and have gone to college. And are you know there's
Speaker 1: a demographic bias to the software that we create due
Speaker 1: to the problems that tech entrepreneurs understand. Yeah, it's funny
Speaker 1: to think of Silicon Valley as a geek problem solution factory. Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: There are forty million people on food stamps. You went
Speaker 1: out with some of them in New York City. I'm
Speaker 1: just curious, when you're out kind of watching the way
Speaker 1: the program works, what kind of insights do you glean?
Speaker 1: What kind of things do you learn about people who
Speaker 1: are living with very low income well, actually I went
Speaker 1: to a food stamp office in Brooklyn to apply for
Speaker 1: food stamps myself, and there were a number of things
Speaker 1: that were surprising to me about that that I learned
Speaker 1: from that particular trip. But the first one is that
Speaker 1: just I walked into the food stamp office and here
Speaker 1: in this office, this is back in twenty fourteen, there
Speaker 1: were maybe a couple hundred people who were waiting in line,
Speaker 1: and most people waiting in line were passing the time
Speaker 1: the same way that most people do when they have
Speaker 1: an hour to wait, which is they pull out a smartphone.
Speaker 1: So here are lines of hundreds of people all waiting
Speaker 1: in line to see a human case worker and fill
Speaker 1: out a paper form. That is the same for everyone
Speaker 1: passing the time with a smartphone in their hands that
Speaker 1: has the ability to solve a lot of those bureaucratic
Speaker 1: challenges for them. And so this was sort of raised
Speaker 1: the initial question. It seemed like the problem was not
Speaker 1: hardware that actually most low income Americans these days have
Speaker 1: accessed to smartphones that can access the Internet. The problem
Speaker 1: was software that those phones didn't seem to have the
Speaker 1: software that was built for them that would actually address
Speaker 1: their needs and was actually built for the SNAP program,
Speaker 1: and to me, a large part of that was because
Speaker 1: there was a blindness in Silicon Valley to the problems
Speaker 1: that people in food stamps have. So walk me to
Speaker 1: the point where you decide how to address the problem
Speaker 1: in the way you've addressed the problem. So I was
Speaker 1: spending time. You know, this is after we had already
Speaker 1: chosen to start Propel. My co founder and I were
Speaker 1: spending time in grocery stores in Philadelphia trying to learn
Speaker 1: more about what it was like to go grocery shopping
Speaker 1: with an EPT card and what was different about it.
Speaker 1: And there is a woman we spoke to those Well,
Speaker 1: the first thing that I do is I called a
Speaker 1: phone number on the back of the card, and we said, okay,
Speaker 1: can you call the phone number for us? She pulled
Speaker 1: out her phone. She had the phone number for the
Speaker 1: EBT card saved on speed dial, and then when the
Speaker 1: automated voice started talking, she immediately, without having to look
Speaker 1: at her card, typed in her EBT card number purely
Speaker 1: for memory. And when we asked her how she was
Speaker 1: able to do that, she said, well, I have to
Speaker 1: call this phone number every time I go grocery shopping,
Speaker 1: and so I've memorized my card number. We later found
Speaker 1: out that this is probably the most commonly called phone
Speaker 1: number in the United States, the one to call it
Speaker 1: to check your balance on your EBT card. So, if
Speaker 1: you were like, in this period we're about to go
Speaker 1: through are going through, if you were advising the various
Speaker 1: bureaucracies that interface with people who are landing in the
Speaker 1: social safety net, like, what would you tell them? What
Speaker 1: would you suggest? Well, I would first paint the picture
Speaker 1: of what the past couple of weeks have been like
Speaker 1: for the forty million Americans who get foodstamp benefits, and
Speaker 1: what we've really heard from people over the past few days.
Speaker 1: In particulars, it's clear that people are facing impossible choices.
Speaker 1: I mentioned that eighty eight percent of people who get
Speaker 1: food stamp benefits and are working have lost some amount
Speaker 1: of wages, either because their hours have been cut or
Speaker 1: because they've been laid off entirely. And so people are
Speaker 1: dealing with a fairly unprecedented kind of a financial challenge
Speaker 1: where they can't make ends meet based on their earned income.
Speaker 1: You know, the other side of that challenge is that
Speaker 1: at the same time, a lot of those families have
Speaker 1: children and those kids were previously getting a free or
Speaker 1: reduced priced school lunch, and those kids are now at home,
Speaker 1: and you have to feed those kids in extra meal
Speaker 1: each day. And so these are some of the challenges
Speaker 1: that are really compounding. We've started to hear from our
Speaker 1: users that you know, they've had to pick between food
Speaker 1: for their kids or gas, or taking time to go
Speaker 1: find a job, or people that are missing work because
Speaker 1: of the hours at their employer and not having childcare
Speaker 1: for their kids because their kids are home from school.
Speaker 1: We heard a story pretty recently from someone who is
Speaker 1: thinking about, you know, her money is super tight this month,
Speaker 1: and so does she spend our money buying a dinner
Speaker 1: for herself or buying formula for her child? It shows
Speaker 1: formula for her child. I think the whole pandemic has
Speaker 1: been anxiety inducing for everyone, regardless of your income and
Speaker 1: regardless of your resource level. But for people that were
Speaker 1: already struggling financially, I think it's just compounded and been
Speaker 1: a really really challenging situation to go navigate. So the
Speaker 1: food stamp program actually deposits each person's benefits on a
Speaker 1: monthly cycle, and that is intentionally staggered throughout the month,
Speaker 1: So not everyone gets their food stamps on the first
Speaker 1: of the month. Oftentimes people will get their benefits on
Speaker 1: the fifteenth or the twentieth, depending, you know, usually on
Speaker 1: some fairly random thing like what's the last letter of
Speaker 1: your first name or last digit of your social so
Speaker 1: you're lined up like school students alphabetically. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: We've heard from a variety of people who get food
Speaker 1: stamp benefits about how scary it's been over the past
Speaker 1: week as they've watched their neighbors and their friends go
Speaker 1: out on these shopping trips to try to stock up
Speaker 1: to purchase canned goods and whatever else they need, while
Speaker 1: these folks who are still waiting for their benefits to
Speaker 1: arrive don't have the purchasing power to make that same
Speaker 1: shopping trip. And people are concerned about, well, when I
Speaker 1: get my benefits in on the twenty second of the
Speaker 1: month or something, are the stores going to have anything left?
Speaker 1: They want to stockpile this like everybody else. But if
Speaker 1: your name starts with sly last name starts with a W,
Speaker 1: you're screwed, right, You've got to wait until it's yeah,
Speaker 1: so we'll have a bunch of listeners, how would you
Speaker 1: advise them to help if they want to help? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we actually just announced a partnership. So Give
Speaker 1: Directly is a nonprofit that does cash transfers. They Give
Speaker 1: Directly team is experienced in doing international cash transfers, primarily
Speaker 1: to people in need throughout the world. They have done
Speaker 1: a variety of programs in the United States as well,
Speaker 1: usually in crisis situations. And so we've actually just announced
Speaker 1: a partnership with them to help our users to get cash.
Speaker 1: And so through the Give Directly partnership, we are trying
Speaker 1: to identify people who use the fresh ebt app and
Speaker 1: are currently validated as getting food stamp benefits. We're focused
Speaker 1: on people who are really dealing with the hardest struggles
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic and looking to help them to
Speaker 1: get a cash infusion. So, if I want to give
Speaker 1: money to give Directly so that people who are don't
Speaker 1: have money have some money to spend, how do I
Speaker 1: do it? What do I do? Go to their website
Speaker 1: directly So the Give Directly team is fantastic. Their website
Speaker 1: is at GiveDirectly dot org, give e d I, r
Speaker 1: ect ly dot org, slash, covid, dash nineteen. Jimmy, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time. It's like a
Speaker 1: total joy to interview you, and I'm really glad you
Speaker 1: figured out how to do what you're doing. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me on today. Next up, Life
Speaker 1: in the Containment Zone. I've been checking in from time
Speaker 1: to time with Katie Highland, the teacher we met in
Speaker 1: season one. She was basically being abused by her student
Speaker 1: loan servicer. You'll get to hear some new stuff about
Speaker 1: her and how her life has changed when we get
Speaker 1: to season two. But right now, Katie Highland has something
Speaker 1: to teach us all because she lives in the New
Speaker 1: York suburb of New Rochelle. It was one of the
Speaker 1: first coronavirus containment zones in the United States. Who would
Speaker 1: have fuck, Katie Highland that before we ever met in person,
Speaker 1: we would both be quarantined. And it's just you can't
Speaker 1: even make it up. You can't make it up. It's
Speaker 1: the most amazing thing in New Rochelle is a containment zone.
Speaker 1: What does that even? What does that mean? Like? What
Speaker 1: effect did it have on your daily life? My kids teachers,
Speaker 1: my personal my children's teachers have just been phenomenal in
Speaker 1: you know, getting ready for this remote learning. None of
Speaker 1: us were trained, you know, properly on how to do this.
Speaker 1: We've all just figured it out in the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks and put it into put it into play.
Speaker 1: Are you doing it through Zoom? So I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do zoom because my school in particular, we're not going
Speaker 1: to do sort of the live feed with students We're
Speaker 1: gonna do. I'm gonna do something called screen Castify, which
Speaker 1: is basically going to capture, like record all of my
Speaker 1: movements on my computer screen. So I'm going to basically
Speaker 1: teach my class like I do every day. They're just
Speaker 1: gonna hear my voice instead of seeing me. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go through all my slides with them and have activities.
Speaker 1: And we've already been using Google classrooms. So it's not
Speaker 1: going to be a huge change for my students, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna miss them to hear that we might not
Speaker 1: go back to school at all this year. That was
Speaker 1: a really tough pill to swallow, not to see my
Speaker 1: eighth not for them for them to not have a graduation,
Speaker 1: you know, to miss all those sorts of things, and
Speaker 1: to not have like a proper goodbye. There's so many emotions.
Speaker 1: You know, you want to keep yourself safe, you want
Speaker 1: to do the right thing for your profession. You miss
Speaker 1: your students, but you want to be with your family
Speaker 1: and stay home. So it's all very conflicting things that
Speaker 1: are happening. I'm curious what happened in New Roshop. How
Speaker 1: did they discover it was a hot zone. There was
Speaker 1: one gentleman, a lawyer from New Rochelle, who was the
Speaker 1: first person to test positive. And he actually, from the
Speaker 1: reports that I heard, was really severe, was put in
Speaker 1: a medically induced coma. He rode the Metro North to
Speaker 1: work every day. He was a member at a temple.
Speaker 1: And then other people from that temple started to test
Speaker 1: positive for the virus. And that was a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks back. So that's really how it originated, like in Westchester.
Speaker 1: And then I just heard reports that he had woken
Speaker 1: up from his coma and told his wife, I love you.
Speaker 1: So I think everyone was really encouraged to hear that.
Speaker 1: All right, Katie Hyland, go and save New Rochelle. We'll
Speaker 1: do all right. Bye bye, all right bye. So that's
Speaker 1: all I got right now. I will say this that
Speaker 1: this one thing I've noticed about what's going on. We're
Speaker 1: supposed to be in social isolation here in the San
Speaker 1: Francisco area, and you're still allowed to wander around the streets,
Speaker 1: and so now everybody's wandering around the streets. And I've
Speaker 1: had more social interaction, though at a distance, with my
Speaker 1: neighbors in the last twenty four hours than I had
Speaker 1: the previous six months. So maybe we're all going to
Speaker 1: get to know each other again. Anyway, I hope you're
Speaker 1: all staying safe and well and sane, and thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to our podcast. We'll be back soon.