(The Hill) – The Department of Education has not gone through with a plan to garnish Social Security checks over defaulted loans, a department spokesperson told The Hill.
“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,” Ellen Keast, the spokesperson, said.
The department announced in April that student loan borrowers in default, or people who have not paid their loans for more than 270 days, had the chance of seeing financial consequences including stopped federal payments like Social Security and garnished wages. The changes could have impacted 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.”
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