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º£½Ç»»ÆÞ’s top companies are calling on lawmakers to boost social safety net spending as pandemic-induced challenges in finding and securing child care have sapped their workforces and complicated recruitment.

A bill aimed at rooting out anti-competitive practices in the health care sector will be heard by the General Assembly’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee Thursday, as lawmakers work to clamp down on rising health care costs.

In º£½Ç»»ÆÞ, according to 2017 Census data, there were nearly 390,000 non-institutionalized persons with reported disabilities aged 16 or older. Less than 25% of that population were employed, according to the state Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, and many of those individuals were considered underemployed — meaning they didn’t have enough paid work or they weren’t fully using their skills.

Training, recruiting and retaining medical staff is critical as º£½Ç»»ÆÞ bleeds doctors and nurses.

After a half-century of decline in the sector, local, state and federal lawmakers are working to revive º£½Ç»»ÆÞ’s industrial base. Tens of millions of dollars in state and federal funding have gone into an array of education and training programs to funnel º£½Ç»»ÆÞ workers into manufacturing jobs.

Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley found that 39% of º£½Ç»»ÆÞ’s construction workers have a family member enrolled in at least one of the five largest social safety-net programs.

Disney shutdown Greenwich based Blue Sky Studios just weeks after receiving $32 million tax credit credit from state.

Shops and restaurants are on their own without a mask mandate.

º£½Ç»»ÆÞ’s statewide unemployment rate in November was 6.0%, higher than the national rate of 4.2%.

There is a growing digital divide among º£½Ç»»ÆÞ businesses, and as internet speeds accelerate, more small businesses could get left behind.