Education Department says it will not garnish Social Security of student loan borrowers in default

By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY Borrowers who have defaulted on their federal novice loans will no longer be at vulnerability of having their Social Precaution benefits garnished an Schooling Department spokesperson declared Tuesday The cabinet last month restarted collections for the millions of people in default on their loans An estimated people aged and older had pupil loans in default according to a January document from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The department has not garnished any Social Protection benefits since the post-pandemic resumption of collections and has paused any future Social Guard offsets department spokesperson Ellen Keast disclosed The Trump Administration is committed to protecting Social Safety recipients who oftentimes rely on a fixed income Keast commented Advocates encouraged the Trump administration to go further to provide relief for the roughly million borrowers in default Only pausing this collection tactic is woefully insufficient announced Persis Yu executive director of the Apprentice Borrower Protection Center Any continued effort to restart the ruling body s debt collection machine is cruel unnecessary and will further fan the flames of economic chaos for working families across this country Learner 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 and older hold an estimated billion in pupil loans according to the National Consumer Law Center a sixfold increase from years ago That led Social Protection beneficiaries who have had their payments garnished to balloon from approximately beneficiaries to between and according to the CFPB Associated Press writer Collin Binkley contributed to this document The Associated Press mentoring coverage receives financial aid from multiple private foundations AP is solely responsible for all content Find AP s standards for working with philanthropies a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP org