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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d Ellen Keast, the spokesperson, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The department announced in April that student loan borrowers<\/u><\/a> in default, or people<\/u><\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Trump Administration is committed to protecting social security recipients who oftentimes rely on a fixed income,\u201d Keast said. \u201cIn the coming weeks, the Department will begin proactive outreach to recipients about affordable loan repayment options and help them back into good standing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March, President Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>said that he was<\/u><\/a> \u201cimmediately\u201d moving the handling of federal student loans from the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration (SBA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler\u2002<\/u><\/a>\u2026 will handle all of the student loan portfolio,\u201d Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office at the time, saying it was a \u201cpretty complicated deal, and that\u2019s coming out of the Department of Education immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd also, Bobby Kennedy, with the Health and Human Services Department, will be handling special needs and all the nutrition programs and everything else,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think that will work out very well. Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n