SNAP strains, youth baseball's class divide, and Meta's bug bounty

0:00NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Whalen Wong. I'm Ricky Mulvey. I'm Adrian Ma and this is Indicators of the Week. It's the show where we share our favorite numbers from the news. Today we'll be covering food benefits, America's favorite pastime and Meta's War against bugs. That's coming up after the break. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from NPR, sponsor Shopify. No idea where to sell. Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. It is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to start, run and grow your business without the struggle. Once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the internet's best converting checkout

1:02to help you turn them from browsers to buyers. Go to Shopify.com slash NPR to take your business to the next level today. This message comes from Inspirity because how you HR matters. From payroll and benefits to HR compliance and talent development, helping your business move forward with confidence. Learn more at inspirity.com slash HR matters. This message comes from Edward Jones, where they believe Rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your Rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC. So it's indicators the week up to bat first we have, Wailin Wong. No joy in Mudville, my indicator has to do with a change to the funding model for Snap, which is the government's food assistance program. The federal government is drastically scaling back how much of the administrative costs it will cover for states.

2:02The feds in the states used to split these costs 50-50. Now under a change that took effect this month, states will be on the hook for 75% of these costs. That is my indicator 75%. So how much money are we actually talking about here? The federal government estimates that I will save about $17 billion over the next five years that works out to around $3 billion a year. So states have to come up with this money now. Yes, and this is the challenge. The center on poverty and inequality at Georgetown law crunch the numbers. And it says some states with above average poverty rates like Mississippi and West Virginia will see their snap costs quadruple or more. Oh, so I know. The states are going to have to either cut other programs or raise taxes. That might be tough on residents who are already struggling. Yeah, or states might have to reduce access to snap. I mean, lots of Americans have already lost their snap benefits because of changes to the program. Yeah.

3:02So under the so-called one big beautiful bill, the federal government expanded work requirements for snap last year. Then after that, you saw snap participation fall. There's one estimate from the center on budget and policy priorities that says participation is down 13%. That's more than 5 million people who used to get these food benefits and don't anymore. I mean, just in the anxiety spiral is there a possibility that some states will just not offer a snap at all? I mean, that would be the most extreme option. But last year, more than 20 governors signed an open letter saying they could be forced to leave the snap program entirely because it's going to be so hard to replace this federal funding. Okay. Let's move to Adrian. Adrian, what is your indicator? So my indicator is $10,000 a year. That is how much some parents are spending to have one six-year-old child play in a youth-travel baseball league. Oh my gosh. I believe it, though. I'm a parent in the suburbs. I believe this. And we're not talking about your parents' little league baseball or softball team that

4:03is run by volunteers. We were talking about a for-profit league of the kind run by companies that are worth tens of millions of dollars. Oh, this is the show's getting darker and darker. That is right. This number actually came from a Wall Street Journal article about the growing industry around youth baseball, specifically leagues that are owned and operated by private equity firms. And private equity? Sometimes they add debt, raise prices. That's kind of their thing. And they're showing up everywhere now because you think about there's all these restaurant chains and dry cleaners and car washes and now we're throwing youth baseball onto the pile. Yeah. Add America's past time to the list. As we know, private equity is good at making money and in this case, they are making it from the parents. So some of examples of the kinds of things they're paying for in these leagues, they often get charged an admission fee to attend the game, which could really add up if you're attending dozens of games. They also can easily spend a couple hundred dollars a year on a special app that tracks

5:06their kids' stats or even a subscription service that livestreams their games. And those costs are on top of what they're already spending on equipment and travel. It's such a shame. It's America's past time. I grew up playing it with families of all income ranges and it's a community game. I mean, there is a quote from the story that really sticks out to me. It's from a youth baseball coach who says, quote, it's really a white collar sport now. There's a ton of kids that should be playing at a high level that can't play because they can't afford it. And the story goes on to provide a pretty telling stat, which is from a nonprofit trade group called the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. They said over the past decade or so, frequent participation in baseball has fallen by 28% among families with income below $100,000 a year, but it's increased 21% among families making over $100,000 a year. So it's the K-shape economy showing up in youth sports, which is maybe something we had seen intuitively, but now we've got some numbers to back it up.

6:10Bad and clean up, Ricky Mulvey. Steel for home. Let's go. My indicator is about Muse. This is the AI agent from the artist formerly known as Facebook. It's on fire right now. As I'm sure you know, Muse was the fastest AI app to reach 5 million downloads and hit that in about three weeks. Wow. Well, as someone who still uses Facebook, I feel like every time I logged on, I would just get a big blaring thing at the top of the screen asking me to check it out. So I think they got enough people to do that with their insistent messaging. It's a powerful marketing machine and Muse is different because it can take actions on your behalf. It can respond to emails or even make purchases. If you give it your credit card, Waelin, let it do its thing on what not for you. Oh, no, no. Meta launched this for free air quotes and put a heavy marketing push around it like you saw. I am somewhat ashamed to say I have downloaded and used Muse. I've named my bot, Meta. Oh, so you're one of the 5 million.

7:12What did you have Muse do for you? Did it shop for you? I've used it for like comparing car insurance quotes. It's been really useful for that. It's less useful when it sees your calendar and it's like having a random boss enter your life where they're like, Hey, have you followed up on this email? It's like, no, stop bothering me about this bot. I already have a boss. I don't need to. Get a second one for Muse's Meta. Meta's Muse. Anyway, the app's growth is not my indicator. Mine is a smaller number and that is $300,000. This is the maximum amount of money that Meta will pay anyone for something called a bug bounty. Oh, I've heard of these. It's like software companies offer these, right? If anyone finds a bug and reports it, then you can be compensated for your trouble. Yeah, it's not new, but there are cybersecurity issues with Muse, the furry and friendly looking AI agent. Turns out it was released with some serious cybersecurity holes. That would be a big problem if you gave Muse a lot of control over your credit card

8:15info or whatever. Yeah, and you know what? Meta didn't spot this. It was a cybersecurity researcher named Patrick Wardle who noticed and warned his followers on social media. He found something called a zero day flaw. It's like a trap door that would allow a bad actor to invisibly control your Muse agent directly. Oh my goodness. This would have been a perfect opportunity for Patrick Wardle to become like a new brand of supervillain. We should be grateful that the Patrick Wardles of the world are reporting these bugs instead of trying to exploit them for their own personal gain. Yeah, because in this case, anything you gave Muse access to, a hacker could have gotten access to. That's a real problem if the agent has permission to, let's say, use your credit card to go shopping on what not, not naming any names here. Or they have your address and your calendar. Or what if they get access to, I don't know, like your my chart or something with your doctor's office. Well, then it can just make health decisions on your behalf. Give it your power of attorney.

9:15Right. Oh gosh. Meta's credit, Patrick says that Meta fixed the bug a couple of days later. I don't know if he got the $300,000. That's not the only problem. For a for media reported that insiders at Meta were rushing to fix other vulnerabilities right before the app went live. And Patrick was not the only person to find a vulnerability after. Okay. So AI is gone from being our butler to our boss to potentially a big financial liability to a content machine. This episode was produced by Corrie Bridges with Engineering by Cinalofredo, is fact checked by Sierra Huadis, Keaton Cannon is our editor, and the indicator is a production of NPR. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Inspearity because how you HR matters.

10:19From payroll and benefits to HR compliance and talent development, helping your business move forward with confidence. Learn more at inspirity.com slash HR matters.