Editor's Note: Steve Rhode who runs the blog, Get Out of Debt shares the story of an aging, jobless grandmother, Janis. The story shows just how brutally the US government treats its citizens today with their new "austerity measures."

- LMB

I’m a Grandmother and Getting my Social Security Check Garnished For Student Loans. – Janis

Janis wrote to me through the GetOutOfDebt.org site and asked the following question. If you have a credit or debt question you’d like to ask just use the online form. I’m happy to help you totally for free.

Dear Steve,

I’m a 68 yr old grandma of 2 young (10/14 yr old) grandchildren. I went to college to upgrade my employment status in 1998 or 1999, I don’t remember. I finished in 2000 and at that time had a student loan balance of about 3500.00.

Could not find a job and had to request forbarence to carry me. Over the years I forgot about the loan, dealt with poor health, had brain surgery in 2006 and the collection agents decided to collect for the loan in 2008.

Mind you, at no time during the 6-7 year gap did anyone remind me or let me know that I could make a minimum payment on the loan. Now that I am on Social Security, ( have been since I was 62) they have decided to garnishee my SS check to the tune of 15%.

I have not been employed since 2004 and have the two dependents who are not included on my check. I do not have enough income to have them take that amount of money from an already insufficient monthly income.

I don’t dispute that I owed them the 3500.00 but am wondering why they let it build up to somewhere around 17,000/20,000 before they attempted to collect. When I tried to reach some agreement with the collection agency they said I would hve to pay at least 250.00 per month and I just could not afford that.

I might add that they informed me of the offset to my check about 3 months before it was to happen. I have requested an appeal but have no response as yet. I have not even filled out any hardship forms.

I have an attorney (I think) looking into this but he gives me no response as yet. I have been looking for part-time work but I think that because of my 13 pages of student loan on the report no one is willing to hire me. The even have the wrong dates on the report. It is reported like it just happened recently (06, 07) and that is not true. My associate degree is dated December 2000.

Is there anything I can do to relieve some of this pressure as my granddaughter is graduating from middle school in may and going on to high school and I expect to have lots of expenses.

Janis

Dear Janis,

Most people thing that their social security can’t be garnished, but we both know that’s wrong and it can be under certain situations.

Section 207 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 407) protects Social Security benefits from assignment, levy, or garnishment. However, the law provides five exceptions:

• Section 459 of the Act (42 U.S.C. 659) allows Social Security benefits to be garnished to enforce child support and/or alimony obligations;
• Section 6334 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. 6334 (c)) allows benefits to be levied to collect unpaid Federal taxes;
• Section 3402 (P) of the Internal Revenue Code allows beneficiaries to elect to have a percentage of their benefits withheld and paid to the Internal Revenue Service to satisfy their Federal income tax liability for the current year;
• The Debt Collection Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-134) allows benefits to be withheld and paid to another Federal agency to pay a non-tax debt the beneficiary owes to that agency. (And this is what your student loans fall under): and
• The Tax Payer Relief Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-34) authorizes the Internal Revenue Service to collect overdue federal tax debts of beneficiaries by levying up to 15 percent of each monthly payment until the debt is paid.
  According to the Department of Education website, there is a process to ask for relief from the Social Security garnishment.

Source: Get Out of Debt