- Social Security recipients do not need to worry about their benefits being garnished due to their defaulted student loans, at least for now.
- The development is an abrupt change in policy by the administration, which had announced in April that it would be resuming collection activity on defaulted student loan borrowers.
- The Education Dept. had said that Social Security benefit offsets could begin as early as June.
The U.S. Department of Education is pausing its plan to garnish people’s Social Security benefits if they have defaulted on their student loans, a spokesperson for the agency tells CNBC.
“The Trump Administration is committed to protecting Social Security recipients who oftentimes rely on a fixed income,” said Ellen Keast, an Education Department spokesperson.
The development is an abrupt change in policy by the administration.
The Trump administration announced on April 21 that it would resume collection activity on the country’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio. For nearly half a decade, the government did not go after those who’d fallen behind as part of Covid-era policies.
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