(The Hill) – A spokesperson from the Department of Education has informed The Hill that a plan to garnish Social Security checks due to defaulted loans has not been implemented.
“The Department has not offset any social security benefits since restarting collections on May 5, and has put a pause on any future social security offsets,” stated spokesperson Ellen Keast.
In April, the department revealed that student loan borrowers in default, meaning those who haven’t made payments for over 270 days, risked facing financial repercussions, such as halted federal payments including Social Security and garnished wages. These changes had the potential to affect the lives of over 5 million borrowers.
“The Trump Administration is committed to protecting social security recipients who oftentimes rely on a fixed income,” Keast said. “In the coming weeks, the Department will begin proactive outreach to recipients about affordable loan repayment options and help them back into good standing.”
In March, President Trump said that he was “immediately” moving the handling of federal student loans from the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration (SBA).
“I’ve decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler … will handle all of the student loan portfolio,” Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office at the time, saying it was a “pretty complicated deal, and that’s coming out of the Department of Education immediately.”
“And also, Bobby Kennedy, with the Health and Human Services Department, will be handling special needs and all the nutrition programs and everything else,” he continued. “I think that will work out very well. Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education.”
