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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June was the first month of eligibility reviews for Missouri's roughly 1.5 million Medicaid enrollees. Children accounted for half of all the state's Medicaid terminations, mostly for procedural reasons. -
The increased reimbursement rate will go to child care providers who accept a subsidy to increase access for low-income and foster families. -
The state said this week it will not participate in a federal program that would provide $120 in benefits to each eligible child, citing administrative hurdles. The decision sparked anger from Missouri parents, who say that officials "basically just robbed us." -
The legislation changes Missouri law by requiring judges start each child custody case with the presumption that “equal or approximately equal” parenting time for each parent is in the child’s best interests. But the bill, passed in the final hour of the legislative session, could make it more difficult for victims to escape abusive relationships and protect their children. -
The Missouri Family Health Council is using federal funds to allow Missourians to request kits with free contraceptive pills by visiting their website or going to one of the partnering in-person centers to pick them up. -
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. -
Missouri lawmakers heard testimony urging them to remove an anti-abortion provision from legislation seeking to extend postpartum coverage. -
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. -
Renewed bipartisan efforts to eliminate the sales tax on grocery food this legislative session have hit roadblocks. -
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. -
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.
