Photo: Claire Harbage/NPR.
Ebert Velasquez Ramos works at the drive-through at a McDonald’s in Morningside, Md. He doesn’t have a car, so he sometimes turns to Escalate, a startup that provides Uber vouchers for workers who need last-minute rides.
Anyone who has interacted with low-income working families knows how little it takes to fall into a hole. One of the most important needs is reliable transportation to a job — or at least a backup for emergencies. That insight from two people who knew the nonprofit world led to an app that’s a win-win.
Andrea Hsu reports at National Public Radio’s Planet Money, “At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, the drive-through at a McDonald’s just off the Capital Beltway is still busy with the late breakfast crowd. Inside the window, Ebert Velasquez Ramos takes an order. …
“The new high school graduate has been at this job for about a month. It’s his first job ever — and so far, so good. The bosses like how personable he is. And he’s been reporting for his shifts on time, every day, something he worried could be a challenge.
“Velasquez Ramos doesn’t have a car, and getting here by bus isn’t easy. Some days, he’s able to catch a ride from a friend or a family member. But when no one’s been available, he’s turned to Escalate, a startup that began piloting its employee support app at seven McDonald’s restaurants in suburban Washington, D.C., late last year. Through the app, he’s been able to quickly get a voucher for an Uber, which gets him to work on time. …
“Escalate is the brainchild of Sienna Daniel and Sean Segal, two veterans of the nonprofit world. For years, they focused on helping unemployed and underemployed people gain the skills needed to land jobs and launch careers. They ran bootcamp-style training, hoping to open up new pathways to work.
“But they saw that workers kept battling the same practical problems. Cars broke down. Childcare fell through. Absences piled up, and people could not hang onto their jobs.
“[Daniel] has seen this phenomenon play out among her own family members in Ohio, who have struggled with poverty and work. ‘My dad, who is 73 years old, and my grandmother, who is 94 years old, still support them every day,’ says Daniel. ‘Driving them to work. Picking them up.’ …
“Segal says through their nonprofits, they’ve seen that people really want to work. And they need the paychecks — even when they’re only making minimum wage.
” ‘It can be viewed as not a quality job and not a living wage, but it’s the job they can get and they have right now. And it’s the way they’re supporting their families, so it’s really important,’ he says.
“Feeling as if they were pushing a rock up a hill, Daniel and Segal began to think anew about their work. What if they could help the population they’ve been so passionate about, while also solving an absenteeism problem that can cost companies tens of thousands of dollars a month? …
“That was the genesis of Escalate, a name they gave to both their startup and its app. If businesses could give people what they need to get to work, exactly when they need it, callouts will drop, they posited. Maybe they could get workers and employers to show up for each other.
“In 2025, Escalate received a grant from the state of Maryland to run a pilot with Hopkins-Navies Ford Management, a McDonald’s franchise with seven locations in Prince George’s County, Md.
“For six months, employees would have access to Escalate’s app, through which they could request last-minute help with emergencies: An Uber voucher when transportation is the problem. A grocery gift card if a worker was short on food. A Visa gift card they could use to pay a family member or neighbor to watch their kids. …
” ‘Having that app, and having our employees make it to work, has been crazy beneficial for us,’ says Imani Ford, who operates the franchise with her mother, Mary Hopkins-Navies. …
“Initially, employees were skeptical of the Escalate app. …
“The real turning point came in late January, when a winter storm hit. Snow quickly turned to ice. Getting to work became a monumental challenge. Johnson remembers checking the cameras outside their stores and seeing workers battling the elements to make their shifts. …
“Veronica Allmon was among those who didn’t want to miss a shift. But her primary mode of transportation is an electric scooter. The roads and sidewalks were treacherous.
” ‘I would have called off until, you know, the snow’s melted, the ice is not there anymore,’ she says. Instead, she used the Escalate app to get an Uber. And she made it to work that day. And the next day. …
” ‘No other job that I’ve worked at ever went this far for their employees,’ she says.”
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