Betsy DeVos sued over wage garnishment from student loan borrowers during coronavirus pandemic

[ad_1]

This concern isn’t new. For example, in mid-April Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sen. Cory Booker wrote a letter to DeVos (as well as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin) saying it was “simply unconscionable” that the Education Department hadn’t actually stopped wage garnishment in spite of the new requirement. The lawmakers stressed that the Trump administration’s lack of regard for new protections “will place workers and families in further economic jeopardy.” At the time, the department responded by saying they would “refund” any wages accidentally taken during the months of relief, which as of now runs from mid-March to the end of September of this year.

As reported by CNN, spokesperson Angela Morabito told the news outlet the Department of Education has “taken immediate action to notify employers to stop garnishing wages.” And there lies the strange system already in place: In simple terms, the federal government doesn’t actually garnish the wages. Private agencies (hired by the government) handle the collections. From there, employers (who are, obviously, in charge of paychecks) put the garnishments in place. It’s also not yet clear what “immediate” means for students in Barber’s shoes.

As the director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, Persis Yu, pointed out, a “refund” is not enough. It’s an ongoing, global pandemic with rising costs and unemployment is booming. People need every dollar to keep up with bills, rent, and food expenses, not to mention if they become ill or have to care for someone who is. “We’re in a national crisis right now, and borrowers need that money right now, and Congress passed a law that said borrowers should keep that money right now,” Yu stated as reported by Politico.

Given the enormous amount of people with student loan debt, including senior citizens, suspending payments (and, ideally, private payments would be as well) is just about the only ethical solution during an ongoing global pandemic. Ethically speaking, wage garnishment for student debt payments is the last thing people should have to worry about.

“We have built a student loan debt collection monster that we cannot physically stop, even in violation of the law,” Frotman said to CNN last month.

[ad_2]

This content first appear on dailykos