Student debt doesn’t just make it harder to save for retirement. For some borrowers, it could eat into their Social Security checks.
New research shows that over the next few decades, an increasing number of Americans are likely to see some of their monthly retirement benefits withheld in order to pay off debts from their schooling. For retirees who have defaulted on federal student loans, a little-known regulation called the Treasury Offset Program allows the Department of the Treasury to redirect, or “offset,” up to 15% of their Social Security benefits toward paying the government back.
