Member-only story
Biden Can’t Restart Student Loan Payments Until 2023
It’s not the economy. It’s politics.
This time last month, my wife and I were preparing for our student loan payments to restart in February. We were mostly ready, as both of us were lucky enough to keep our jobs through the pandemic and didn’t need to use that money towards rent or groceries.
Instead, the money that would otherwise go down the black hole of our student debt was used to save up for a down payment on the house we recently purchased along with buying a few extra Christmas presents.
For us, the payment pause was working just as intended by the government economists. To wit, we were juicing the economy with our “extra” money, which was the intention all along.
Sure, both the Trump and Biden administrations will say that the pause was to help those who were unemployed or otherwise financially harmed by the pandemic, but don’t you believe for a second that either of them had any interest in actually helping people.
For anyone who lost their job, they could just claim a hardship forbearance while applying for/updating an Income-Drive Repayment plan with their now-zero income, reducing their payments to literally $0.
So why would the President (both of them) suspend student loan payments?