Social Security benefits were withheld from an estimated 114,000 individuals of at least 50 years in age as of 2015 in order to repay their student loan debts, a congressional watchdog reported Tuesday.
"An increasing number of older Americans have defaulted on their federal student loan debt," the Government Accountability Office (GAO) wrote in a blog post. "To recover this debt, the federal government can withhold a portion of Social Security payments -- a process known as offsetting."
The 114,000 total borrowers assessed marks a fourfold increase since 2002.
"This number is expected to continue to grow given the increasing number of older borrowers and their high rates of default," the blog post said.