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Comment by wirrbel | Hacker News Reader

Can we stop these hyperinflated mission claims already. Fighting poverty is a good ambition, not quite sure an app will solve that problem.

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"Fight poverty" is certainly a grandiose mission statement.

But this core function--checking benefits balances--is very helpful to EBT users.

Why? In my neighborhood there are quite a few EBT users. I've seen several of them run over their limits at the supermarket checkout. It's humiliating. (I volunteer at the drop-in center for kiddos in the local public housing project, so I know a few of these families.)

Plus, the nudges in this app to good nutrition are undoubtedly helpful. Generally super cheap food isn't the healthiest food, and an app like this can help.

I pay lots of taxes so poor people can have a fair shot at getting themselves and their families out of poverty. EBT helps fulfill that mission.

I know some people take the default position that recipients of public assistance ought to endure some hassles. I don't agree: being poor is hassle enough. The states where this big contractor does business should require them to cooperate with innovating stuff like Propel.

In most cases you can do an EBT Balance Inquiry right at the checkout (or customer service, etc).

Yeah but it's easier to look it up before you even go to the store. Why waste gas if you've only got $10, wait til next bit comes in a few days, that sort of thing.

Most EBT cards I’ve seen also have a toll-free number on the back to call and check your balance through an automated system (similar to gift cards).

Yeah but just glancing at an app is still faster. When you're poor you're constantly tired and low on time.

I certainly still prefer using my bank's website to their automated phone teller as well. More info more quickly.

>Most EBT cards I’ve seen also have a toll-free number on the back to call and check your balance through an automated system (similar to gift cards).

Yeah, and my bank does online phone banking. Which I've literally never used because it takes a couple of seconds with online banking to check my balance and roughly 10,000% more time to perform the same action with phone banking and that's IF I can remember all the details needed to get to that point.,

These things swing, hegelian-like. You have pompous & meaningless, empty slogans: "a culture of excellence." You can find old-timey version of this inscribed in latin on fancy old school walls and banks.

Then meaningful and ambitious slogans start: fighting poverty, changing the world, revolutionizing vegetables. It feels fresh and more meaningful for a bit, then eventually starts to sound pompous and disingenuous too.

Now, I think we'd like to hear a little understatement, soft-voice-big-stick-ish. Maybe "good services for poor people" sounds about right. Rings true, nice contrast to "fighting poverty's" overstatement, without reverting to the old cliches.

Eventually this might sound fake too, or uninspired.

The fun thing about the old-Timey inscription is that they tend to describe not just the solution, but also the problem:

“E pluribus unum”. “One from many” hints at the problem of a society of immigrants. Similarity, “liberté, egalité, franternité” starts with two competing goals (freedom and equality), then offers a bridge between the two: solidarity (fraterinté literally means something like “brotherlieness”)

I'm not an historian, but I think “E pluribus unum” and “liberté, egalité, franternité” should be analyzed in the context of their own time. “liberté, egalité, franternité” was a war cry promoting brotherly union against monarchy. "freedom" and "equality before the law" are not competing goals, but were revolutionary ideas on their time.

If you said to a member of a royal family back then: "I believe all men are created equal", you could be imprisoned and executed, depending on his majesty's will. That's because your ideas jeopardized the foundations of monarchy.

"liberté, egalité, franternité" only appeared after the start of the revolution. And it was not used as the official motto until the third Republic at the end of the 19th century.

Edit: and regarding the last part, I don't think it's true, since the king's power was limited, by the various intistutions and other local powers.

It will most definitely not. But it can make people's lives living in poverty bit better. And having the "job ads", "healthy cooking/eating" content in there may help someone live a better life (while tracking down habits, location, shopping patterns, etc).

This actually looks like a way to tackle poverty, even if in small steps. Pairing SNAP data for recipients with job opportunities is sort of genius. It might not be a large step up for each one but I'm sure it adds up at the scale they reach and in the long run.

>Pairing SNAP data for recipients with job opportunities is sort of genius.

If only that were meaningful. Able bodied single men on SNAP have 3 months of benefits unless they are working, more than 66% of SNAP recipients are working, the problem isn't job ads.

It's that most poor people are already have jobs and are underemployed or jobs are simply not available like for rural people.

Now, if they were pushing seriously catered and easy to understand online classes like money management, program awareness/advocacy, in demand job training, that might be something, but that's all expensive.

Posting low wage job ads is really cheap.

You're equivocating. You went from "fight" to "solve" in the same sentence!

This. As someone who has been in poverty tools to help organize your limited time help take the load off immensely. This tool sounds really great, just being able to glance at it rather than trying to call.

and “Big X wants to block them” is another classic PR spin that usually shows very beneficial to the “victims”.

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