Social Services

Proposals to include dental, vision and hearing coverage in Medicare, as well as expand Medicaid, may be cut as Democrats try to make a deal on budget bill.

Some people may qualify for Extended Benefits, a federally funded aid program that kicks in depending on their state’s unemployment rate.

Senate Democrats issued a budget framework Wednesday that calls for higher taxes on the rich and more tax enforcement, similar to President Biden’s tax plan.

Among the many harsh truths about American society exposed by the coronavirus pandemic is this one: Our social safety net is broken. NBCLX storyteller Cody Broadway looks at how the ripple effect of the broken safety net can be seen in things like an increase in crowdfunding campaigns to cover lost wages and health expenses and a growing strain on...

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin says he wants to train civilians to handle some of the calls that come to the police department. He’s committing five-million-dollars over the next four years to recruit and train this crisis response team

“We need police,” said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, as he announced a financial commitment to a new civilian crisis response team. Bronin said his new approach to public safety won’t replace police officers or defund their department.  “What we’re talking about here is a crisis response team that is specifically focused on filling a gap,” he explained. The team...

Facing fiscal hardship and calls for police reform, the Hartford City Council voted early this morning to reallocate two-million-dollars of the police department’s budget

The Town of Montville’s Social Services department is working to help an increasingly high number of people get access to basic needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We were busy to start with and this, literally, is just like a whirlwind coming in on top of that,” said Kathleen Doherty-Peck, director of Senior and Social Services for the town. The...

Local social services departments are strapped under the weight of added requests during the coronavirus outbreak, but in some cases, first responders are lending a much needed hand.

Advocates say new guidelines that disqualify more people from green cards if they use government benefits is prompting droves of immigrants to drop government social services

Residents signing up for food stamps in Minnesota are provided a brochure about domestic violence, but it doesn’t matter if they even read the pamphlet. The mere fact it was made available could allow them to qualify for government food aid if their earnings or savings exceed federal limits. As odd as that might sound, it’s not actually unusual. Thirty-eight...

According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), incidents of serious workplace violence were at least five times higher in health care than in other industries.

In a medical emergency, doctors, nurses and other people on the front lines in health care and social services are our lifeline. But there is a danger that these lifesavers say they are facing on the job.

Jose Garcia carried a drawstring backpack full of used syringes as he walked into the converted shipping container that serves as the base for Florida’s only hypodermic needle exchange program. The 57-year-old carefully counted as he dropped 115 syringes one-by-one into a locked biohazard bin brimming with hundreds of other used needles. Garcia said the University of Miami pilot program...

President Donald Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday to economist Arthur Laffer, whose disputed theories on tax cuts have guided Republican policy since the 1980s. Laffer, 78, advised Trump during his presidential campaign and co-wrote a flattering book, “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy.” Laffer says lower tax rates change people’s behavior and...

The Connecticut House passed a two-year $43 billion state budget deal reached by Democrats.

Job gains in the services sectors continued to rocket higher in April as hiring remained hot for computer system designers, social workers and health-care professionals. Manufacturing, on the other hand, posted a third straight month of lackluster employment figures. CNBC studied the net changes by industry for April jobs based on the data from the Labor Department contained in the...

Yousuf Abdelfatah already knows the answer he’ll give about his race on the 2020 census questionnaire will be wrong. He’s an Arab American, but the only race options on the census are white, black, Asian and categories for American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander. Reluctantly, Abdelfatah will mark white. “If you look at me, my skin is darker,...

On Thursday, students will head back to classes at Windham Middle School. It was closed on Wednesday with students on edge after two threats in the past week.

Students at Windham Middle School and Windham Early Childhood Center will have no school on Wednesday. The school district announced the closure after a second threat about the school within a week was posted on social media on Tuesday.