McDonald's App Slashes Absences With Emergency Ride Vouchers

Ebert Velasquez Ramos was worried he'd miss shifts at his first job ever because he doesn't own a car and buses don't run easily to his McDonald's in Morningside, Maryland. Then his employer gave him access to an app that changed everything.

Through Escalate, the 18-year-old can request an Uber voucher when he can't catch a ride from friends or family. He's shown up on time, every day, for a month straight.

The app is solving a problem that costs businesses and hurts workers who desperately need their paychecks. Sienna Daniel and Sean Segal created Escalate after years working in nonprofits, watching people lose jobs not because they didn't want to work, but because their cars broke down or childcare fell through.

"Opportunities might be there, but if they aren't stabilized and they don't have what they need to be able to get to where they need to go, there's a problem," Daniel says. She watched her 73-year-old father and 94-year-old grandmother drive family members to work daily because they had no other options.

The solution turned out to be surprisingly simple. Workers open the app when emergencies hit and request what they need: Uber vouchers for transportation, grocery gift cards when they're short on food, or Visa cards to pay trusted neighbors for last-minute childcare.

In 2025, Maryland funded a six-month pilot at seven McDonald's locations owned by Hopkins-Navies Ford Management. The franchise had been struggling with callouts that cost an estimated $300 per missed shift through lost customers, longer lines, and overtime pay for replacement workers.

The Ripple Effect

The results have surprised even the optimistic owners. "Having that app, and having our employees make it to work, has been crazy beneficial for us," says Imani Ford, who runs the franchise with her mother, Mary Hopkins-Navies.

When workers miss shifts, customers abandon drive-through lines that move too slowly. Hopkins-Navies has watched it happen countless times in her 35 years in the business.

But Escalate is proving that workers and employers can show up for each other. Employees get the support they need exactly when emergencies strike, and businesses keep their teams intact and customers happy.

For workers earning minimum wage, these jobs matter deeply even when they don't pay living wages. "It's the job they can get and they have right now, and it's the way they're supporting their families," Segal explains.

The program represents a shift from traditional workforce development that focused only on job training. Daniel and Segal realized they were pushing rocks uphill by helping people get jobs without addressing the practical barriers that made keeping them nearly impossible.

Now Velasquez Ramos takes orders at the drive-through window with confidence, greeting customers cheerfully as they order McGriddles and hash browns. He knows that when the next transportation emergency hits, he won't lose the job he worked hard to get.