0:15

Pushkin. Hi,

0:22

It's Michael Lewis here. I'm nearly

0:25

finished with the next season of Against the Rules.

0:27

It's like last season in some ways,

0:29

I'm talking with people about inequality

0:32

in American society and what it's doing to

0:34

our idea of fairness. But this

0:36

time we'll be telling the story through the lens of coaching

0:38

and coaches, the edge that coaches

0:40

can give people, and who doesn't

0:42

get that edge in our society.

0:47

As we all know, things are not normal right

0:50

now. That's why we're bringing you this

0:52

extra bonus episode. I guess

0:54

I should first say I'm still alive

0:56

and so far disease free. But I've been

0:58

doing a lot of interviews lately with people who've

1:01

dedicated their careers to helping other people.

1:03

This is an especially good time to be talking

1:05

to people like this, So you're going to get to hear

1:07

a couple of their conversations right now. Once

1:10

with someone you already met before in last seasons

1:12

Against the Rules, the teacher

1:14

Katie Highland. She happens

1:16

to live in the containment zone that it's

1:18

now New Rochelle, New York, so

1:21

she's been on lockdown more than most of us

1:23

in the United States first, though,

1:25

here's a guy whose work is also really relevant

1:28

right now. His name is Jimmy Chen, and

1:30

he left behind a fancy career in Silicon

1:33

Valley to build an app, which

1:35

he's called fresh Ebt. It

1:37

helps people on food stamps. Well, it's

1:40

actually formally known as the Supplemental

1:42

Nutrition Assistance Program. They're

1:44

about forty million Americans who access

1:46

this program. They get funds once

1:49

a month on a card that looks more like a gift card

1:51

than an ATM card, and most

1:53

of the state programs don't have an

1:55

easy way to let people know how much is

1:57

left on their card. They don't even know their balances,

1:59

so it's hard to budget and make

2:01

smart decisions. That's a

2:04

problem at any time, but it's a

2:06

huge problem right now with so much

2:08

food and secure in our economy. And

2:10

Jimmy's got a solution. Hi, this

2:12

is Jimmy. Hey Jimmy, thanks for joining me. Hi,

2:15

Michael, So, are

2:18

there peculiar anxieties that you're

2:20

sort of seeing in response as virus

2:23

in the population that you serve? Well,

2:26

you know, we've seen

2:28

a lot of people concerned about

2:30

not being able to purchase more toilet paper, and

2:32

I think that's a thing that you know, people

2:34

are often cracking jokes about in the general

2:36

population, why are you stocking up on toilet paper right

2:38

now? But when we talk to our users

2:40

about that specific situation, they actually have a

2:42

very real need there. For

2:45

a lot of our users, they can't afford to purchase

2:47

things like toilet paper in bulk, and

2:49

so they are purchasing toilet paper

2:51

every time they go grocery shopping or on a

2:54

very frequent cadence. And so if the grocery

2:56

store is sold out of toilet paper, that's a real

2:58

problem because they don't have a backup supply

3:00

that they can use, and so a lot of people

3:03

are really worried about that. So it's interesting

3:05

because no one has explained to me why

3:08

that shelf and no other shelf

3:10

in the grocery stores that maybe the disinfectant

3:12

shelf is empty. Yeah. I

3:15

mean, I don't know which way the flywheels started

3:17

on this particular one, but I know that for

3:19

low income folks who maybe haven't

3:21

had the resources to go out and stock up on toilet

3:24

paper, it is a different level of scary.

3:26

Okay, so let me back up a minute.

3:29

Let's just start a little bit about you and what you

3:31

do like what your company is sure.

3:33

So I'm the founder and CEO of Propel.

3:36

We're a technology company that aims to help

3:38

people who are low income the United States to

3:40

navigate safety net programs like the

3:42

food Stamp program and to improve their

3:44

overall financial health. We build

3:46

a free smartphone app called the fresh Ebt

3:49

app that helps somebody who gets

3:51

food stamp benefits or snap benefits on

3:53

an EBT card to see how much

3:55

they have left in benefits, but also to connect

3:57

to a variety of different social services to

3:59

save money and to find different

4:02

ways that they can earn more cash.

4:04

Are you already seeing an uptick

4:07

in users in response to

4:10

what's going on in the economy right now? We

4:12

are. We're seeing about thirty

4:15

percent more usage each day than we normally

4:17

do, and to be clear, those are for people

4:19

who are already using fresh Ebt. So

4:22

we have also seen a lot of stats about how

4:24

enrollment in the food Stamp program has gone up dramatically

4:26

over the past week, but the

4:28

way that the food Stamp program is actually structured

4:31

that those enrollments don't become actual

4:33

cases usually for about a month,

4:36

and so we would see that a month later as

4:38

people enroll in the program. So

4:40

you're already saying it up. But what do you imagine is going

4:42

to happen over the next few months. Well,

4:45

I think there are a couple of different

4:47

populations that are worth thinking about here.

4:49

The first are the people that are already

4:51

getting food stamps now. So you

4:54

know, there are forty million Americans prior to

4:56

COVID and all of this crazy pandemic stuff.

4:58

There are forty million Americans that we're already

5:01

struggling to make ends meet in a normal

5:03

economy. These are the folks

5:05

that are already using the food stamp

5:07

program. The majority of them are working

5:09

and have children and just trying to pay

5:11

the bills. So those are the people who use fresh

5:13

EBT now, and they're facing

5:16

a very specific set of challenges as this

5:18

is kind of the financial shock that is really putting

5:20

them behind. There's a separate set of

5:23

Americans that we can also talk about, the people

5:25

that are probably one or two tiers of income

5:27

higher than that and maybe have a little

5:29

bit of safetiscussion but not a ton, and

5:32

as a result of the economic shock

5:34

here, they're the ones who are newly applying for the

5:36

program. So I think those two groups are going to have

5:38

different types of outcomes but face some of the same

5:41

challenges. But how big is that kind

5:43

of food stamp adjacent population. Well,

5:46

there's that popular stat that forty

5:48

percent of Americans can afford a

5:50

four hundred dollars shock. Right now, these

5:52

are all of the Americans that are living paycheck to paycheck,

5:55

and it's not necessarily the case that those folks

5:57

are all very low income. You know,

5:59

you can be making seventy or eighty or ninety

6:01

thousand dollars a year and still be in that population

6:03

of not being able to afford a four hundred dollars

6:05

shock. As we've spoken to our

6:08

user base about what past week has

6:10

been like, we have heard

6:12

from people that eighty eight percent of

6:14

people who get food stamp benefits and

6:16

we're working have had their hours

6:19

cut or lost their jobs entirely. And

6:22

of those eighty eight percent, the average

6:24

amount in job earnings that has

6:26

been lost is five hundred dollars.

6:28

So when we talk about this four hundred dollars shock that

6:30

was going to send people over the cliff, that shock has

6:32

happened, right, So it makes

6:35

what you do even more important. Yeah,

6:37

that's right, I think you know, broader than

6:39

Propel. You know, the reason I started Propel

6:42

was this notion that we have a safety net here

6:44

in the United States, that people who go through financial

6:46

hardship have a variety of resources

6:48

provided by the public sector and the private sector,

6:51

and that those resources are aimed to help

6:53

people in financial need to get back on their feet,

6:55

and so more broadly, I think, you know, this

6:58

whole COVID nineteen mess is a real

7:00

test of our safety net in the United

7:02

States of not just programs like food stamps, or

7:04

programs like Medicaid and unemployment

7:07

and so on that also have to pick up the slack

7:09

and are seeing tons of more traffic these days as

7:12

people are looking to these safety net programs

7:14

to help them to get through this really

7:16

unusual time. How long did you start

7:18

the company. I started the company about

7:20

five and a half years ago. How did this happen?

7:22

Well, I grew up in a loving

7:25

and supportive family that also experienced

7:27

a financial shock and had trouble putting food on

7:29

the table. I think, like most American families,

7:31

we were sort of on the edge financially,

7:34

and then when my dad lost his job when I was about

7:36

ten, you know, we had a few years of just really

7:38

tough financial times. I

7:40

was fortunate to go to college on a full scholarship

7:43

on financial need and then spent

7:45

a few years working in different software companies

7:48

in Silicon Valley after I graduated from

7:50

college. And one of the things

7:52

that just really struck me after spending years working

7:54

in Silicon Valley and these tech companies is just how

7:57

people solve the problems that they understand. And

8:00

that's by and large the reason why so

8:03

many products that come out of Silicon Valley are solving

8:05

the problems of twenty to thirty

8:07

year old men. Yes, who

8:09

live in cities and have gone to college. And are

8:12

you know there's a demographic bias to the software

8:14

that we create due to the problems that tech entrepreneurs

8:17

understand. Yeah, it's funny to think of Silicon

8:19

Valley as a geek problem solution

8:21

factory. Exactly, exactly. There

8:23

are forty million people on food stamps.

8:26

You went out with some of them in New York City. I'm

8:28

just curious, when you're out kind of watching

8:30

the way the program works, what

8:33

kind of insights do you glean? What

8:35

kind of things do you learn about people who are living

8:37

with very low income well,

8:40

actually I went to a food stamp office

8:42

in Brooklyn to apply for food stamps myself,

8:45

and there were a number of things that were

8:47

surprising to me about that that I learned from that particular

8:49

trip. But the first one is that just I walked into

8:51

the food stamp office and here

8:54

in this office, this is back in twenty fourteen, there

8:56

were maybe a couple hundred people who were waiting in

8:58

line, and most people

9:00

waiting in line were passing the time the same way

9:02

that most people do when they have an hour

9:04

to wait, which is they pull out a smartphone. So

9:08

here are lines of hundreds of

9:10

people all waiting in line to

9:12

see a human case worker and fill out a paper

9:14

form. That is the same for everyone passing

9:16

the time with a smartphone in their hands that

9:18

has the ability to solve a lot of those bureaucratic

9:21

challenges for them. And so this was sort of raised the

9:23

initial question. It seemed like the problem

9:25

was not hardware that actually

9:27

most low income Americans these days have accessed

9:30

to smartphones that can access the Internet. The

9:32

problem was software that those

9:34

phones didn't seem to have the software

9:36

that was built for them that would actually address their needs

9:38

and was actually built for the SNAP program, and

9:41

to me, a large part of that was because there was

9:43

a blindness in Silicon Valley to the problems

9:45

that people in food stamps have. So walk me

9:47

to the point where you decide how to address

9:49

the problem in the way you've addressed the problem. So

9:53

I was spending time. You

9:55

know, this is after we had already chosen

9:57

to start Propel. My co founder

9:59

and I were spending time in grocery stores in

10:01

Philadelphia trying to learn more about what it was like

10:03

to go grocery shopping with an EPT card and what was

10:06

different about it. And there

10:08

is a woman we spoke to those Well, the first

10:10

thing that I do is I called a phone number on the back of the card,

10:12

and we said, okay, can you call the phone number for us?

10:15

She pulled out her phone. She had the phone

10:17

number for the EBT card saved on

10:19

speed dial, and then when the

10:21

automated voice started talking, she immediately,

10:24

without having to look at her card, typed in her EBT

10:26

card number purely for memory. And

10:29

when we asked her how she was able to do that, she said, well, I

10:31

have to call this phone number every time I go grocery

10:33

shopping, and so I've memorized my card

10:35

number. We later found out that this

10:37

is probably the most commonly called phone number

10:39

in the United States, the one to call it to check your

10:41

balance on your EBT card. So,

10:44

if you were like, in this period we're about

10:46

to go through are going through, if

10:48

you were advising the various

10:50

bureaucracies that interface with people

10:52

who are landing in the social safety net,

10:55

like, what would you tell them? What would you suggest? Well,

10:58

I would first paint the picture of

11:00

what the past couple of weeks have been like for

11:02

the forty million Americans who get foodstamp

11:05

benefits, and what we've

11:07

really heard from people over the past few days.

11:09

In particulars, it's clear that people are facing

11:11

impossible choices. I mentioned

11:13

that eighty eight percent of people who get food

11:15

stamp benefits and are working have

11:18

lost some amount of wages, either

11:20

because their hours have been cut or

11:22

because they've been laid off entirely. And

11:25

so people are dealing with a fairly unprecedented

11:27

kind of a financial challenge where they can't

11:29

make ends meet based on their earned income. You

11:32

know, the other side of that challenge is that at

11:34

the same time, a lot of those families have children

11:37

and those kids were previously

11:39

getting a free or reduced priced

11:41

school lunch, and those kids are now

11:43

at home, and you have to feed those kids in extra

11:46

meal each day. And so these are some of

11:48

the challenges that are really compounding.

11:50

We've started to hear from our users that you know,

11:52

they've had to pick between food for their kids

11:55

or gas, or taking time to go

11:57

find a job, or people that are missing work

11:59

because of the hours at their employer

12:01

and not having childcare for their kids because their kids are

12:04

home from school. We heard a story

12:06

pretty recently from someone who is thinking about,

12:08

you know, her money is

12:10

super tight this month, and so does she spend our

12:13

money buying a dinner for herself or buying

12:15

formula for her child? It shows formula

12:17

for her child. I think the

12:19

whole pandemic has been anxiety

12:21

inducing for everyone, regardless

12:23

of your income and regardless of your resource level.

12:26

But for people that were already struggling financially,

12:28

I think it's just compounded and been a

12:30

really really challenging situation to go navigate.

12:33

So the food stamp program actually

12:35

deposits each person's benefits on a monthly

12:38

cycle, and that is intentionally

12:40

staggered throughout the month, So not everyone gets their

12:42

food stamps on the first of the month. Oftentimes

12:44

people will get their benefits on the fifteenth or

12:46

the twentieth, depending, you know, usually

12:48

on some fairly random thing like what's

12:50

the last letter of

12:53

your first name or last digit of your

12:55

social so you're lined up like school students

12:57

alphabetically. That's right, that's right. We've

12:59

heard from a variety of people who get

13:01

food stamp benefits about how scary

13:03

it's been over the past week as they've watched

13:05

their neighbors and their friends go out on these

13:08

shopping trips to try to stock up to

13:10

purchase canned goods and whatever else they

13:12

need, while these folks who are still waiting for their

13:14

benefits to arrive don't have the purchasing

13:17

power to make that same shopping trip. And

13:19

people are concerned about, well, when I get my

13:21

benefits in on the twenty second of the month

13:24

or something, are the stores going to have anything left?

13:26

They want to stockpile this like everybody

13:28

else. But if your name starts with sly last

13:31

name starts with a W, you're screwed, right,

13:34

You've got to wait until it's yeah,

13:36

so we'll have a bunch of listeners,

13:38

how would you advise them to help if

13:40

they want to help? Well,

13:43

you know, we actually just announced

13:45

a partnership. So Give Directly

13:48

is a nonprofit that does cash

13:50

transfers. They Give Directly team

13:52

is experienced in doing international cash

13:54

transfers, primarily to people in

13:56

need throughout the world. They have done

13:58

a variety of programs in the United States as

14:00

well, usually in crisis situations.

14:03

And so we've actually just announced a partnership

14:05

with them to help our users

14:07

to get cash. And so through the Give

14:10

Directly partnership, we are trying

14:12

to identify people who use the fresh

14:14

ebt app and are currently validated as getting

14:16

food stamp benefits. We're focused

14:18

on people who are really dealing with the hardest

14:20

struggles because of the pandemic

14:23

and looking to help them

14:25

to get a cash infusion. So, if

14:27

I want to give money to give Directly

14:29

so that people who are don't

14:32

have money have some money to spend, how

14:34

do I do it? What do I do? Go

14:36

to their website directly So the Give Directly

14:38

team is fantastic. Their website is

14:41

at GiveDirectly dot org, give

14:44

e d I, r ect

14:46

ly dot org, slash,

14:48

covid, dash nineteen. Jimmy,

14:51

thank you so much for taking the time. It's like a total

14:53

joy to interview you, and I'm really glad you figured

14:56

out how to do what you're doing. Thank you so much for

14:58

having me on today. Next

15:05

up, Life in the

15:07

Containment Zone. I've

15:21

been checking in from time to time with Katie

15:23

Highland, the teacher we met in season one.

15:26

She was basically being abused by her student

15:28

loan servicer. You'll get to hear

15:30

some new stuff about her and how her life has changed

15:33

when we get to season two. But right now, Katie

15:35

Highland has something to teach us all because she lives

15:37

in the New York suburb of New Rochelle.

15:40

It was one of the first coronavirus containment

15:43

zones in the United States. Who

15:49

would have fuck, Katie Highland that

15:51

before we ever met in person, we

15:54

would both be quarantined. And

15:57

it's just you can't even make

15:59

it up. You can't make it up. It's

16:01

the most amazing thing in

16:04

New Rochelle is a containment zone. What

16:06

does that even? What does that mean? Like? What effect did

16:08

it have on your daily life? My kids

16:11

teachers, my personal my children's teachers

16:13

have just been phenomenal in you

16:15

know, getting ready for this remote learning.

16:19

None of us were trained, you know,

16:21

properly on how to do this. We've all just figured

16:24

it out in the last couple of weeks and put it into

16:26

put it into play. Are you doing it through Zoom?

16:29

So I'm not gonna do zoom because

16:32

my school in particular, we're not going to do sort

16:34

of the live feed with students

16:37

We're gonna do. I'm gonna do something called screen Castify,

16:40

which is basically going to capture, like record all

16:43

of my movements on my computer screen.

16:45

So I'm going to basically teach my class

16:47

like I do every day. They're just gonna hear

16:49

my voice instead of seeing me. So I'm gonna go through

16:51

all my slides with them and have activities. And

16:54

we've already been using Google classrooms. So

16:56

it's not going to be a huge change for

16:58

my students, but I'm gonna

17:00

miss them to hear that we might not go back to school

17:03

at all this year. That was

17:05

a really tough pill to swallow, not

17:08

to see my eighth not for them for them

17:10

to not have a graduation, you

17:13

know, to miss all those sorts of things, and to not

17:16

have like a proper goodbye. There's so many

17:18

emotions. You know, you want to keep yourself safe,

17:20

you want to do the right thing for your profession. You

17:22

miss your students, but you want to be with your family

17:25

and stay home. So it's all

17:27

very conflicting things that are happening.

17:29

I'm curious what happened in New Roshop. How did they

17:31

discover it was a hot zone. There was one

17:34

gentleman, a lawyer from New

17:36

Rochelle, who was the first person to

17:38

test positive. And he actually,

17:42

from the reports that I heard, was really severe,

17:44

was put in a medically induced coma.

17:46

He rode the Metro North to work

17:48

every day. He was a member

17:51

at a temple. And then other people from that

17:53

temple started to test positive for

17:55

the virus. And that was a couple of weeks back.

17:57

So that's really how it originated, like

17:59

in Westchester. And then

18:01

I just heard reports that he had woken

18:04

up from his coma and told his wife, I love you. So

18:06

I think everyone was really encouraged

18:09

to hear that. All right, Katie Hyland, go

18:11

and save New Rochelle. We'll do all right. Bye

18:13

bye, all right bye. So

18:22

that's all I got right now. I will

18:24

say this that this one thing I've noticed about

18:26

what's going on. We're supposed to be in social isolation

18:29

here in the San Francisco area, and

18:31

you're still allowed to wander around the streets, and so

18:33

now everybody's wandering around the streets. And I've had

18:35

more social interaction, though at a distance,

18:38

with my neighbors in the last twenty

18:40

four hours than I had the previous six months.

18:43

So maybe we're all going to get to know each other again.

18:47

Anyway, I hope you're all staying safe and well

18:50

and sane, and thank you for listening

18:52

to our podcast. We'll be back soon.