Borrowers who have defaulted on their federal student loans will no longer be at risk of having their Social Security benefits garnished, a U.S. Education Department spokesperson said Tuesday (June 3).
The government last month restarted collections for the millions of people in default on their loans. An estimated 452,000 people aged 62 and older had student loans in default, according to a January report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
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The department has not garnished any Social Security benefits since the post-pandemic resumption of collections and has paused “any future Social Security offsets,” department spokesperson Ellen Keast said.
“The Trump Administration is committed to protecting Social Security recipients who oftentimes rely on a fixed income,” Keast said.
Advocates encouraged the administration to go further to provide relief for the roughly 5.3 million borrowers in default.
Staggering student loan debt
Student loan debt among older people has grown at a staggering rate, in part due to rising tuition that has forced more people to borrow heavily. People 60 and older hold an estimated $125 billion in student loans, according to the National Consumer Law Center, a sixfold increase from 20 years ago.
That led Social Security beneficiaries who have had their payments garnished to balloon from approximately 6,200 beneficiaries to 192,300 between 2001 and 2019, according to the CFPB.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Cheyanne Mumphrey and originally published by Alabama Daily News.
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