(The Hill) -- The U.S. Department of Education has not gone through with a plan to garnish Social Security checks over defaulted loans, a department spokesperson told The Hill.

“The Department has not offset any social security benefits since restarting collections on May 5, and has put a pause on any future social security offsets,” Ellen Keast, the spokesperson, said.

The department announced in April that student loan borrowers in default, or people who have not paid their loans for more than 270 days, had the chance of seeing financial consequences including stopped federal payments like Social Security and garnished wages. The changes could have impacted the lives of over 5 million borrowers.

“The Trump Administration is committed to protecting social security recipients who oftent

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