In the shopping centers of Boca Raton, Fla., on Wednesday, the Supreme Court decision that the government could withhold Social Security benefits to pay back old student debt met with overwhelming approval, but also strong dissent. Everyone had an opinion.
“It’s just like credit card bills,” Mike Becker, 73, of Pittsburgh, said. Becker said that his four children had paid off their student loans.
“People run up their bill and then cancel the card and go out and get another card and do the same thing,” he said. “And who pays for it? You and me.”
David Copeland, 69, agreed. Copeland said that he paid off his student loans and that others should do so also.
“I think it ties in with the general theme today of people should take more responsibility with things,” he said.
Other people identified with James Lockhart, a former postal worker who took the suit to the Supreme Court. Lockhart, now 67, lives on $874 a month in Social Security benefits and $10 a month in food stamps.
After the government withheld part of his benefits to repay his nearly $80,000 in student debt, he filed court papers stating that he could no longer afford some medications for his diabetes, heart condition and other ailments, according to his lawyer, Brian Wolfman.
Mary LaVerghetta, 85, of Boca Raton, thought that the government was punishing people who tried to progress through education.
“I think it’s wrong,” LaVerghetta said. “Kids want to go to school. They want to learn. The government shouldn’t punish them. People on Social Security should be able to keep that money.”
Advocates for the elderly and disabled called the decision a hardship for people who rely on Social Security for their main income.
“The whole purpose of Social Security is to give you an ability to survive,” said Michael Burgess, executive director of the New York State Alliance for Retired Americans, which represents 525,000 New Yorkers, mostly union members.
“It’s going to be counterproductive, because the government will get some money back from these people, but they’ll have to apply for more federal or state benefits to make up for it,” Burgess said.
Among retirees, about a third receive 90 percent or more of their incomes from Social Security.
The major effects of the ruling will be felt in the next 10 years as the baby-boom generation starts to retire, said Ruthann Dobek, director of the Brookline Council on Aging in Brookline, Mass.
“The seniors we have right now funded college with the GI bill,” Dobek said. “I think that we will be seeing a surge of that with the baby boomers’ aging.”
Americans have nearly $400 billion in student loans, according to the federal Department of Education.
Default rates have fallen steadily, from 22.4 percent in 1992 to 4.5 percent in 2003.