Clara Bates
Reporter | The Missouri IndependentClara 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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The Missouri Senate gave initial approval to legislation that would end the state’s practice of seizing Social Security benefits from foster children. -
The median time it took Missouri’s social services department to process Medicaid applications for low-income Missourians in February was 77 days. -
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling the practice unconstitutional, Missouri State Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, proposed legislation that would allow the death penalty in non-homicide cases. -
It’s the first Toyota plant nationally where workers have publicly joined the UAW’s push to unionize across 13 non-union automakers in the U.S. -
Missouri’s child welfare agency took at least $6.1 million in foster kids’ benefits last year to reimburse itself for the cost of providing care. -
Under current Missouri law, 16- and 17-year-olds are allowed to get married with parental permission to anyone under the age of 21. -
Interviews with advocates, applicants, participants and experts reveal that increased pressure on the social service agency’s capacity has intensified bureaucratic hurdles for low-income and low-resource Missourians trying to access government health insurance. -
The state’s requirements comprise ‘one of the nation’s most stringent bans for receiving SNAP benefits,’ according to one report. -
The program would provide $40 in food benefits for each month an eligible child is on summer break, loaded onto a card that can be used like a debit card to purchase groceries. Missouri's decision is nonbinding, and the state now has until Feb. 15 to submit a detailed plan to the federal government. -
Roughly 429,000 Missouri children would be eligible to receive $51.5 million in food benefits next summer if the state chooses to participate in the federal program. -
A wide-ranging bill passed by the state legislature last year banning sleeping on public land was struck down on Tuesday by the Missouri Supreme Court for violating the constitution’s single subject requirement. -
The case involves a Jefferson County father whose parental rights were terminated after he pled guilty to child molestation and sexual misconduct in 2022.
