Feds Seize Social Security Checks to Pay off Student Loans

By admin on August 10, 2012

Smart Money

It’s no secret that falling behind on student loan payments can squash a borrower’s hopes of building savings, buying a home or even finding work. Now, thousands of retirees are learning that defaulting on student-debt can threaten something that used to be untouchable: their Social Security benefits.

Tens of thousands of retirees have fallen behind on student loans–and the feds are coming after their Social Security benefits. SmartMoney’s AnnaMaria Andriotis has details on Lunch Break.

The amount that the government withholds varies widely, though it runs up to 15%. Assuming the average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker of $ 1,234, that could mean a monthly haircut of almost $ 190. “This is going to catch an awful lot of people off guard and wreak havoc on their financial lives,” says Sheryl Garrett, a financial planner in Eureka Springs, Ark.

Many of these retirees aren’t even in hock for their own educations. Consumer advocates say that in the majority of the cases they’ve seen, the borrowers went into debt later in life to help defray education costs for their children or other dependents. Harold Grodberg, an elder law attorney in Bayonne, N.J., says he’s worked with at least six clients in the past two years whose problems started with loans they signed up for to help pay for their grandchildren’s tuition. Other attorneys say they’re working with older borrowers who had signed up for the federal PLUS loan — a loan for parents of undergraduates — to cover tuition costs. Other retirees took out federal loans when they returned to college in midlife, and a few are carrying debt from their own undergraduate or graduate-school years. (No statistics track exactly how many of the defaulting loans fall into which category.)

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