Joe Biden’s efforts on student loan debt relief didn’t often generate front-page headlines, but for the Democratic White House, the issue was a top domestic priority. Some of the Democratic administration’s efforts were, however, more successful than others.
The problem wasn’t a lack of effort: Biden would have done far more were it not for ferocious pushback from Republicans and GOP-appointed judges. The results led to odd resistance from Donald Trump, who declared during the 2024 campaign season that the Democratic White House was “ALL TALK, AND NO ACTION” on the issue of student loan debt forgiveness.
This really wasn’t fair — Biden and his team took as many actions as they could under the law — but Trump seemed eager to persuade younger voters not to support the Democratic ticket because Republicans had successfully derailed some of the Biden administration’s efforts on student loans.
This and related messages proved surprisingly successful: The GOP’s far-right ticket made meaningful and unexpected gains with voters under 30 last fall.
Those same voters have fresh reason to regret their choice. The Washington Post reported:
The Trump administration will begin seizing the pay of people in default on their student loans early next year, marking the first wave of new wage garnishments since the pandemic, the Education Department confirmed Monday.
Starting the week of Jan. 7, the department told The Washington Post, it will notify about 1,000 defaulted borrowers of plans to withhold a portion of their wages to pay down their past-due debt. After that, the department said, notices will be sent to larger numbers of borrowers each month.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because Trump’s Education Department first started talking about garnishing borrowers’ wages back in May. Now, the Republican administration is moving forward with implementing these plans.
A report in The New York Times added, “The announcement comes as many Americans are already struggling financially, and the cost of living is top of mind. The wage garnishing could compound the effects on lower-income families contending with a stressed economy, employment concerns and health care premiums that are set to rise for millions of people.” This news also comes just weeks after Trump’s Education Department also effectively scrapped the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education repayment plan, or SAVE, for student loan borrowers. Evidently, when the president told student loan borrowers to expect “action” from the Trump administration, this is what he and his team had in mind. Whether younger voters were aware of this when casting their ballots last fall is unclear. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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