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here but it's guy oh man it's entirely possible this GoPro is too close to my face so I'm just gonna wind up with like a ginormous nose in this video guess we shall see everybody it's kinda thanks for watching make me smart on this YouTube thing always always just click that subscribe button it's easier that way for you it's easier that way for us I just realized my yoga mat is in my shot I'm Molly Wood and I am Kyra's dog this is make me smart the weekly Edition it's the original the og of make me smarts it's our Tuesday show a deep dive into one topic and hopefully all get smarter by the end today we're gonna do some small business we're gonna do some people in this economy and how they are getting by with rescue package and the two trillion dollars assistance and actually more this morning that just came out from the Treasury Department about the paper check pay check protection system they hate it when I pop my peas into the microphone EP that's right anyway to the back to the subject it is a mess getting two trillion dollars into this economy and we are gonna put our correspondent our guest through her paces on this one yeah exactly we have Sam fields a marketplace reporter who has been covering how money affects people's lives who has been doing some reporting on the SBA paycheck protection program those this is to remind you we talked about this last week and it made me so upset that I cried on the video the small business loans that can be forgiven if business has managed not to lay people off which I think we can all agree is a big if and then on top of that banks have been having a terrible problem getting this program up and running and in fact people are already saying that they have been denied loans so there are lots and lots of issues and then I think breaking news as we came in here was that Congress has appropriated another I believe 350 billion dollars because banks because companies even though they can't necessarily get their hands on the money are burning through it so quickly so with all of that behind us let's get to you Sam thanks for coming on yeah thanks for having me okay so first things first would you give us the very quick 30,000 foot view of specifically small businesses in this package and the paycheck protection program I would say the overwhelming or the overarching word to use is uncertainty people just don't know what's happening and that is small businesses that is banks that is other kinds of lenders there's just a lot of clarity that they still don't have about all sorts of aspects of the program about you know four banks what they need to do to actually get the funds to people for a lot of other lenders if they even are gonna have access to capital to get it to people and for small businesses they just don't know one some people haven't been able to apply at all others have been able to apply but haven't gotten an approval others have gotten an approval and haven't gotten funds yet and so there's a lot of anxiety too among small business owners especially those who haven't been able to apply yet about the possibility of this pot of money running out which Molly you mentioned up at the top is something that clearly people in the federal government are worried about too right and I guess I should clarify it looks like thank you to the slacks that came in there will be a vote Thursday on whether to appropriate that new amount but there is this urgency in the air because as it turns out it's first-come first-serve right this pot of money yeah it is it's very much a person that I spoke to last week before a couple days before the Friday the application's opened on Friday said he was urging small businesses if they had the resources if they possibly could to get all of their documents ready to and be calling their banker and calling their banker and calling their banker and trying to be first in line because it is gonna be first come first serve both in terms of how quickly you get the money but also in some cases whether you get the money at all because again the demand for this is huge Wells Fargo already closed applications they closed applications on Sunday after they had opened on Friday and so some people some small businesses who had accounts who have relationships with Wells Fargo didn't get their applications in on time I mean not on time but they didn't get their applications in before Sunday and now aren't gonna be able to apply with Wells Fargo and are kind of scrambling to see where else they can go yeah it's important to say here that Wells Fargo has some capital restrictions put on it because of that whole disgraceful thing about about opening the face of fake accounts a couple of three years ago but but that's a good point right I mean you know if you don't have a relationship with your bank if you're too far back in line you're gonna wind up in some trouble there's also a there's a timing thing here too Sam right because businesses have to make decisions about whether lay people off like now and this money is still pending and they have to sort of figure out what to do with that after they're through this process yeah it's really tricky you know one interesting thing about this is my understanding is businesses that have already laid people off because as we know a lot of businesses have already laid people off before this this even happened you can hire your employees back they're looking at what your payroll was in February you can hire people back and start paying them again so but yes businesses are you know with every passing hour with every passing day they're they're needing to make decisions about what to do with their businesses a lot of businesses you know are running out of cash maybe have already run out of cash a lot of them operate on really thin margins and time is of the essence here and you know well it's understandable that it's really hard to get a 350 billion dollar lending program a new program up and running and get money out you know within a matter of days or weeks these businesses needed the money yesterday right why before we turn to sort of the people and everybody who's running one of these small businesses is one of those but anyway yeah before we shift topics why did this happen this way you know there were a couple articles that sort of said well in other countries the government just became payroll like it paid the businesses so that the businesses could keep their people on as opposed to this sort of free-for-all loan situation where banks were able to lobby for higher interest rates they may or may not be forgivable like is there any sense of why this is the way this is going down in America I don't know the answer to that but honestly a lot of people seem to be asking the question of why this is loans and not grants it makes it a lot more complicated and it also makes businesses a lot more anxious in some cases about applying for it because it's unclear how much will be forgiven what the mechanisms for that will be if there's any sort of real certainty of that there are certain complications that go along with making it a loan program and so there there are questions around why that is happening that way and there are a lot of advocates for small businesses a lot of small businesses themselves who are saying hey you know we're gonna need more funding we all know this already as you guys were saying Treasury is already asking or planning to ask for another at least 200 billion dollars to shore up this program other people are saying in next rounds of funding make some of it grants make all of it grants because one it will be you know it won't risk leaving some small businesses with debt but also it may be less complicated for people and another thing you know I just want to flag you know as we head into talking about people is one of the biggest concerns here with the small businesses and with you know it's being kind of first-come first-serve is that a lot of people who need this money the most a lot of low-income businesses businesses and minority communities immigrants may not have relationships with lenders may not be able to be first in line and may completely miss out or not get this funding for a long time and they may be the ones who need it now yes to all of that I think it's really important that we acknowledge that the reason these aren't grants and to be completely honest won't be grants even in another bill is because we have divided government in this country and not everybody agrees that it ought to be grants there's a certain you know particle spectrum in this country that says look bootstraps use them you know we'll lend you some money but you gotta pay us back can we talk people here for a minute Sam and unemployment first of all there has been a huge expansion but also snafus in getting people that money yeah uncertainty here again is the word that really pops up and anxiety which I think we're all sensing a theme you know I spoke to a young waitress a couple of weeks ago she was one of the 3.3 million who filed a couple weeks ago for unemployment she had been laid off from her waitressing job her full-time waitressing job at a restaurant in Manhattan along with the entire staff and spent every single day hours a day for a full week trying to call an employment to file a claim and she said she would just call and hang up and call and hang up and she never got hold music she said she had never in her life hoped to hear elevator music but she was hoping to hear elevator music and she literally just got a busy signal every single time she has to mate she called at least 500 times and the only way she finally got through was that the manager of the restaurant was checking in on his people and he said hey have you gotten through I just got through and she said no I still haven't gotten through and he said try now and she did and she didn't get through and he's like let me try for you and so he called and he was able to get through again and while they were on hold he conferenced her in and he waited on the line with her while she found his place which I mean I just I kept thinking about that story because one that's I guarantee you that's not happening in most cases that's pretty above and beyond for a manager but that's the only way she got through she never got through herself and she doesn't know why and you know we're hearing these stories over and over and over again of people calling hundreds even thousands of times people going on websites having them crash there's just a lot that is you know not working very smoothly with millions of people applying for unemployment kind of overnight and then that just a pilot I'm just in a pile right on yeah because that is so all of that is the trouble that you have if you are you know a registered small business or you are a person who qualifies for these checks the stimulus relief checks or unemployment who tell us about all the people who are falling through the cracks here yeah it's tricky there are a lot of people falling through the cracks with the stimulus pretty much if you have a social security number so if you're a citizen or if you're a resident who's here who's not a citizen but you're an immigrant who's here legally you should be getting a check if you you know hit the income requirements but undocumented immigrants won't get checks people who you know dependent adult so a lot of college students who are over the age of 17 who you know are still being claimed by dependents as dependents by their parents but you know won't be eligible for the $500 for a child they won't get checks their parents won't get checks for them either so there are there are a lot of holes there and then with unemployment you know it's interesting undocumented immigrants again obviously won't be able to apply for unemployment but even legal immigrants may may be you know afraid to apply because you know this year the Trump administration changed the public charge rule which makes it you know it means that it could be held against them even if they're illegal immigrant if they apply for benefits that they're eligible for like unemployment it could be held against them if they go to apply for citizenship and so a lot of people may be afraid to do that even if technically they could and then you know there are people who may not qualify because they didn't make enough money now that's supposed to I think be changing under you know under the cares Act provisions but there are people that I've been reading about who have been applied for unemployment had been rejected because they either didn't work for long enough before they applied for unemployment or that's what they're being told or they didn't make enough money they didn't have enough hours I think technically they're part time workers are supposed to be able to apply so some of that may be states just not sort of having the guidance for the new rules in place yet the same thing is kind of true for gave workers and freelancers they are now eligible for the first time to apply for unemployment under under the cares Act but a lot of states don't seem to sort of sort of know how to make that work yet and so a lot of them are having trouble either getting through filing or being rejected are being told to wait and hold off while states kind of figure out how to make that work the the overwhelming theme in this conversation so far is that none of this stuff is happening fast enough right and when you consider that we've been shut down in this economy for going on two and a half three weeks now parts of it for a month and ciampi per month and this economy's like a trillion point seven five seven dollars right almost two trillion dollars let's talk real quick about straight payments to individuals those two are not happening perhaps as fast as we need them to happen definitely not I think what you've just said is exactly what I've been thinking with all of this with the stimulus checks with unemployment with the SBA loans it's just not happening fast enough people needed this money days ago weeks ago they need it now and they may not get it for another couple weeks with the stimulus checks they should start going out in the next week or so for the first round but again that's only gonna be some people it's gonna be people who have their data on file for direct deposit with the IRS and that's a lot of people of course and so people may see these checks in the next week or ten days but a lot of people they're saying may be waiting weeks or months maybe to get these checks if they don't have direct deposit on file and if you know the IRS needs to sort of figure out where to find them yeah so okay one last question definitely related to all of that is that what is in this bill or are there discussions in future rounds about debt relief because it sounds to me like a lot of people and businesses are going to be turning to credit cards and other kinds of debt to just like float by until hopefully things get moving yeah that's my sense too and you know it's interesting the one form of debt relief that was in the Care Act was student loan relief which is not I don't know that debt relief is quite the right way to put it but basically it's a blanket across-the-board pause of student loan payments if you have federal student loans direct federal student loans you don't have to pay them until the end of September and that is actually retroactive to March 13th so if you made a payment between the 13th of March and now you can ask for it back if you want if you're short on cash and you need that they're also suspending interest they're preventing interest from accruing on student loans in that period - so there really is sort of no reason to pay your student loans right now unless you know you want you have your your job still you're lucky and you want to try to attack the principal but that is sort of one of the across the board suspensions of debt right now beyond that there really isn't debt relief there are various eviction moratoriums in place and states there's some at the federal level if you have a federally backed mortgage but beyond that effectively debt relief is like call your lender call your credit card company and ask what they can do for you which you know in a lot of cases c
mpanies are working with people in various ways but there's one it requires people making that call it requires people knowing they have the option to make that call and sort of getting over their anxiety and procrastination which we all know those cars cops are really hard to make it's stressful and you know if that's with this and and also people are just have so many other things on their plate they they may not prioritize that for a little while so yeah I don't know it'll be interesting to see if there is more across-the-board debt relief that comes up in the next round but thus far there hasn't been that much Sam fields she's a reporter here marketplace covering money how to fix people's lives and oh boy is this a time for that beat Sam thanks a lot I really appreciate thank you guys talk to the bootstraps yes if you are if you are a person in this situation whether you're a small business owner applying for the SBA paycheck protection if you're applying for unemployment for the first time we talked to a gig worker who is already in that situation where the state is like oh no how to get you gig worker benefits let us know be sure to tell us what state you're applying in like just we'd love to hear your stories that can be a voice memo or an email I can't promise I won't cry but like I'll try send them to make me support at market place now it seems like a good time to tell you I'm a crier Molly's the girl [Music] all right we're back we're back we're back we're back the news is upon us I'm so glad you picked yours because I was gonna pick that of course I was late today so you got to go first and metaphorically speaking anyway but I'm just gonna pick right up where Sam left off this idea of debt relief and and oh by the way that's gonna be really troubling because two things number one Congress is not going to pass a federal debt relief statute number two the debt doesn't just go away right somebody's left holding the bag and that's gonna be a fight on debt relief but it's worth a note here that according the morning Mortgage Bankers Association people are not paying their mortgages now it's not a huge amount like it was in 2008 yeah it's just 2.6 percent of mortgages are in arrears but that's up from like a quarter of a percent in the prior period so I think a thing to watch here because this is what people not paying their mortgages is what's going to turn this from a demand problem in this economy right people not buying enough stuff people not paying mortgages is gonna turn this into a financial system crisis because if those loans don't perform and look we saw this in 2008 if those loans don't perform they've been securitized lots of people are left holding the bag and then that gets ugly in a hurry so keep an eye on the mortgage market Mortgage Bankers Association says the number of people not paying is going up look out mm-hmm yeah we want our banks to be well capitalized right that's what we're saying here yeah yep Wells Fargo by the way also on that note in fact suspended refinancing of jumbo loans which are loans over depending on where you live between 500 and 750 thousand dollars which is like a lot of loans on the coast obviously and and basically said nope because you can't they can't they're having them those are hard you resell those loans right so people who have really expensive houses in say the Bay Area or New York or LA and buy really expensive like I should be clear a starter house in Oakland is 950 so like yeah a lot of people are in a position where they can't necessarily refinance to take advantage of those lower rates I think they're still issuing them for now but I took that as a warning sign for sure um also a warning sign that was breaking just as we came in that is also related yeah it's two trillion dollar aha exactly it like doesn't seem that big but it is big so let me take you back to when Congress at the end of March which is roughly one year ago in today's terms eight days ago can you even remember that remember when the stimulus bill was like headed for approval and all of them Democrats slowed it down and everybody was like why would they do this and the reason that they did it is because they said there has to be oversight of the disbursement of the money in general and specifically this five hundred billion dollar what was called a corporate liquidity fund so money in there that could just go to companies and Democrats said whoa whoa whoa like there's no there are not enough rules here to determine how this taxpayer money is going to get distributed even compared to like 2008 and 2009 in terms of reporting to whom it went and how so the senator said like it is not optional that you have an Inspector General who is in charge of overseeing this fund it this is like oversight required by law they held up the stimulus bill over this one issue today President Trump removed the Inspector General who is in charge of that oversight booted him now we should be clear here inspectors general serve at the president at the pleasure of the president right so it's not like oh my god he's doing this illegal thing what's often surprising is what legal not what's illegal I will say I mean the Democratic senators did say quote in their letter to Treasury secretary minutiae about this specific issue faithful application of the law is not optional is a requirement now president from the in and hearing to the law it did appoint someone else an acting inspector general to fill the position but the person who was basically the appointment that was agreed upon in order to get the bill passed that person has now been removed from that position and this is a lot of your and our money at stake can I put on my historian hat for here for two SEC's please do so let's remember what happened after tarp and the lack of transparency with tarp right the Troubled Asset Relief Program back in 2008 the big bailout for the banks people went bananas because 400 something trillion billion dollars was shoveled out into this economy and without a whole lot of oversight and people went nuts and what did that get us it got us Occupy Wall Street it got us Tea Party I think I've done this rant before right he got us Occupy Wall Street he got us the Tea Party it got us Bernie Sanders and eventually it got his President Trump so this stuff has trickle-down effects pun intended that might not seem immediately apparent and I would submit that the blowback from this is going to be bigger than the blowback from lack of oversight about tarp oh absolutely cuz it yeah you know I yep well because this is just the start to of stimulus bills right there is more money that is going to be coming that will potentially have less oversight as a result of this myth there I mean there has to be this is like right pardon the plain talk but this is an insane thing that you keep you keep saying that and yet here we have Congress not being able to figure it out you know we do and the fact that they're I mean don't get me started on how they're on recess I know yeah well so yes but I mean they're on recess cuz most of them are over 65 and they would all die if they got in the same chamber together so they don't have sound like they're not working not that they should be using zoom they should know you definitely have a more secure yeah yeah told you soon can you imagine zoom by hours definitely have a more secure thing than that but they should have my thing anyway it is a huge deal I only raised it say and I'm glad that you agree with me huge 100 percent sure alright that's it that's it for the news fakes are not going L agree there's a little bit of it know that number 2 was the history that was for my oh okay yep no I only had one this time look at me with the rules don't forget to sign up if you would like more news actually just interesting information like Erica does a great job of not overwhelming you with the bummer like I believe we may have a little bit today please sign up for our make me smart newsletter it pops into your inbox hopefully we have just educated we're just the more you know up in here every Friday morning is how you get that newsletter lots of context about the Cova 19 outbreak the economic implications the tech like all of it and stuff to make you smile marketplace org slash newsletters it was great to hear comments on my question about to dpr i wanted to put in my vote I want to discuss a slightly different but maybe related thing so a couple of weeks back when this whole corn thing quarantine thing rather had kind of just gotten started we asked you to tell us how or in fact if stay at home was happening where you are lots of you wrote in here's a little bit of a snapshot of what you were seeing and some updates as well we started in Iowa on a quick little cross-country roadtrip it's with Nicole folks from a week ago I wanted to let you know she wrote that Iowa is not doing shelter-in-place we're all still going to work and not a lot of people are working from home I would say about 1/4 of the people here that is Iowa are practicing social distancing the update goes like this Governor Kim Reynolds Iowa has still not issued a stay at home order although apparently she's coming under some fire to get one a going wow now to Tennessee there's a pretty amazing story in The New York Times today to about Idaho where they have one but I don't know how familiar are with Idaho it's a state of some discontent and so there is basically like a Liberty movement I grew up next I know too much but there's a Liberty movement now where they're saying like the stay-at-home order is unconstitutional and they're trying to sort of contravene it that way now to Tennessee here's a voice memo from Chris Miller here in Chattanooga we are not under any sort of government order to stay home but all restaurants are takeout only and gatherings of ten or more people are banned I'm working from home this week but last week I traveled to the rural parts of Tennessee for inspections and found a stark contrast between how the virus was being treated the cities have been treating this seriously and I've often led the state on measures such as shutting down schools enclosing restaurants and bars but while I was in a rural County that had no recorded cases at the time I stopped at a diner for some coffee and got to talkin was the owner and she told me that her mostly older customers were still coming in for coffee in the morning in beer in the evening and also she was skeptical about the threat the virus posed a vigorous Lee washed my hands after leaving that diner and even after that scare the coffee wasn't even good Chris sent by the way he sent that voice memo on March 23rd again roughly 1 bajillion years ago but it was in fact just a little over two weeks ago last Thursday April 2nd Tennessee Governor Bill D finally issued a stay at home order but as we know from various polling listen like the level to which people are taking this seriously depends on and where they live and frankly what party they're in at this point like that is a clear divide in this country without a doubt to Arizona we go to round out the little road trip here Amy hecka Thorne wrote in to say this after much criticism she writes the Governor of Arizona issued a stay at home order for April that doesn't apply to essential services but it looks like every job is an essential service golf courses are an essential service under this order the disruption to the economy from the virus is bad but the disorganization in governmental orders is causing more distress to the economy nobody knows what's going on eventually they'll need to take stronger measures and the problem will keep dragging on I'm getting frustrated she finishes by the disorganized method of handling this crisis the update goes like this from Amy's note Governor Doug Ducey is getting a lot of blowback on that list which does in fact include golf courses also pawn shops and salons mayor's are asking him to narrow the list make it more tight and you know we'll see what happens we'll see what happens well the reason that we bring this up by the way I heard like a great metaphor for this and it's basically if some state I mean you know look dr. Anthony Fauci America's doctor has been on TV saying I don't understand why we don't have a national stay-at-home order and the thing is if we don't have a national stay-at-home order it's kind of like saying and I'm totally stealing this from Twitter and TV it's kind of like saying that there are parts of the pool that it's okay to pee in like you're kidding yourselves you're kidding yourselves I'm just saying that there is no more like you get that immediately when you hear that you're like oh I gotcha a gentler version of that is that it's like saying that there are parts of the plane that it's okay to smoke in and the rest of its non-smoking but you see what I'm saying here okay all right one of my favorite parts about the show getting a free cup by talking about pee know is that it gives us a chance to from you guys and how this pandemic is affecting your lives in all sorts of ways our next one comes from listener Ellen Klieman it is a little bit heartbreaking I don't know why they gave it to the crier but here we go because I don't think that Ellen is alone in experiencing this she says my anchor job and we've talked about this a lot on the show Ellen says my anchor job is actually what someone would consider a side gig and I have a side gig on top of that I'm a musician and teacher a member of the creative class my income and my husband's was almost entirely obliterated by social distancing and we're trying to pivot and be nimble in all but frankly it's hard another blow fell yesterday we lost our health insurance when my husband was cut from a restaurant contract that included some benefits now I'm left worrying that one of us will get sick wind up in the hospital on a ventilator and generate many many thousands in debt we will never be able to repay I know I'm not the only one in this situation what do you do when your health care is to employment and a pandemic takes away your job what will our children do if we get covert 19th don't give up so it's a note like this that makes you realize that this will be a generation generation shaping event right yeah I mean I like like three weeks ago people were saying oh yeah there's gonna be a v-shaped recovery and we're gonna bounce right back because we were so strong going in and that's not the way it's gonna go beeps yeah that was going around Twitter there was like here's how many people have lost health care in America since the pandemic started 35 en yeah or something like that and then it was like every other country zero yeah so like we can't even tell you I mean this is a pivot point in our country yeah for sure for sure and the challenge of course is recognizing the pivot point as it happens and I'm not talking you and me and all the other you know gadflies out there it's the people in authority with power to do something not recognizing it and that's the challenge that is the challenge another challenge is making the turn into an upbeat make me smart question but I'm gonna do that right here the question of course is you gotta somebody thought you knew but later found out you were wrong about and because we like to keep things a little light sometimes on the way out of this show we're gonna do another one from a staff member last week was Ben this week Alison vermeuhlen she's communications manager here at marketplace worked super hard as do all the folks who helped me in Mulligan from the microphone and she was also a huge fan of the spot so here we go this is Alison vermeuhlen hi Kai and Molly I am here to share something that I thought I knew but it turns out I didn't in this Cove in 19 sitting a lot more and a recipe called for cilantro seeds and I thought I was familiar with my herbs and I didn't know what cilantro seeds were apparently cilantro seeds are coriander and cilantro is the Spanish word for coriander they are the same thing that's my fun little cooking tidbit thanks for the show I was long ago where I learned that myself so I know I remember learning that I'm just being like I was probably yeah Allisyn by the way we have a group a slack
group here at marketplace the MP exercise group and it's been being passed around weekly and Alison is in charge and I would just like to say that I'll show although she is lovely and a big fan and I love her she assigned us a hundred and twenty squats in six minutes today and so I'm just a little mad a little mad at Alison today what what okay it's really good it's really I could start posting the exercises on Twitter if you guys want them there really it's really it's a good group okay good all right before we go a reminder to check out a daily I have a whole group chat that I post the exercises in every day like this is being spread far and wide it's a movement about it's a movement please check out our daily make me smart explainers as if you don't have enough to listen to but actually it turns out you guys don't like everybody needs some entertainment here so when you are separating your corriander from your cilantro there's the same thing ask your Amazon lady to make me smart and have a listen today just a reminder this is the show for today no 10 minutes short evil yeah yeah make me smart is produced and directed by Sam Anderson our digital producers Tony Wagner our senior producers Jody Becker thanks to our video producer Ben Heathcote our video intern Ethan parrots and thanks to writer producer Erica Phillips this week's program was engineered by Charlton Thorp our theme music was composed by Ben holiday and then the Ramirez I'm gonna note that as long as I can the executive director on demand is star DM as the senior vice president and general manager is Deborah there we go i I mean I know I should know by now but for a second I thought we lost you like I was like oh is this your net for oh not come back one day oh no I got stung by being the pommel I and the other day and it still itches what yeah seriously I would have raised the world's biggest fuss about that how does the whole world not know about this
