Clara Bates
Clara Bates covers social services and poverty for The Missouri Independent. She previously worked for the Nevada Current, where she reported on labor violations in casinos, hurdles facing applicants for unemployment benefits and lax oversight of the funeral industry. She also wrote about vocational education for Democracy Journal. Bates is a graduate of Harvard College and a member of the Report for America Corps.
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Applicants to the state child care subsidy program often face long call center wait times and onerous paperwork requirements — and child care providers who accept the subsidy face administrative hurdles of their own. -
An investigation by The Missouri Independent and MuckRock found that despite hundreds of millions in federal pandemic relief money pouring into the state, child care facilities are facing huge staffing shortages and parents are struggling with long waitlists for care.
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Missouri lawmakers heard testimony urging them to remove an anti-abortion provision from legislation seeking to extend postpartum coverage.
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Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft tweeted that a job posting for a “diversity, inclusion and belonging leader” was an example of “left-wing indoctrination in the workplace” and the wrong use of taxpayer dollars. State agency leaders say inclusion and belonging programs help retain employees during a severe staffing shortage.
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Renewed bipartisan efforts to eliminate the sales tax on grocery food this legislative session have hit roadblocks.
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A law passed last year made sleeping on state-owned land a misdemeanor in Missouri. It went into effect Jan. 1, but critics say there is still a lack of clarity from the state surrounding its implementation.
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Dozens of former students have gone public with their allegations of physical, mental, and sexual abuse at the Stockton-based Christian residential facility, which opened in 1996. For the last few years, Agape has been at the forefront of the state’s reckoning over abuse allegations at unlicensed faith-based boarding schools.
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Officials previously said the summer emergency food benefits program would be dispersed by the end of the year. Achieving that goal looks increasingly unlikely.
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A former camper alleges that Branson-based Kanakuk, one of the largest Christian summer camps in the country, concealed knowledge of a director's sexual misconduct when it persuaded his family to sign a settlement and non-disclosure agreement.
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Despite a federal lawsuit, callers to the state hotline handling Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program waited on hold an average of an hour and a half in August before being connected to agents.
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A new report found many families earn too little to qualify for the $2,000 federal benefit, which is tied to a family’s earnings and income taxes. Nearly a quarter of the Missouri children who fall into the gap are Black — higher than the state's overall population of Black kids.
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Missouri on average took 41 days to process a Medicaid application in September for the eligibility group which includes low-income children, pregnant people, families and adults.
