Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is facing a lawsuit over continuing to garnish the wages of federal student loan borrowers despite Congress suspending that practice in the $2 trillion economic relief package passed earlier this year.
A lawsuit was filed Thursday from an upstate New York woman who claimed that the federal government seized more than $70 from her paycheck as recently as last week, according to Politico. The woman says she is a home health aide who works for less than $13 an hour.
The lawsuit says she is suing on behalf of nearly 285,000 borrowers whose wages have been garnished since the passing of the CARES Act.
In March, DeVos announced the Department of Education would temporarily halt wage garnishments to provide some economic relief during the coronavirus pandemic that’s left many without work or limited employment due to social distancing measures and directions to keep people at home.
The department announced the collections would stop beginning from March 13 and would last for at least two months. It vowed to not withhold money from defaulted borrowers’ federal income tax refunds, Social Security payments, and other federal payments. Additionally, DeVos ordered the department to refund about $1.8 billion in Treasury offsets to more than 830,000 borrowers.
“These are difficult times for many Americans, and we don’t want to do anything that will make it harder for them to make ends meet or create additional stress,” DeVos said in a release.
The Washington Post reported the department never notified employers to stop withholding money from borrowers’ paychecks, which can take a couple weeks to process.
Department officials have said they plan to refund any wages garnished during the promised relief period but has not provided a timeline as to when the refunds will happen.
