The decision came in response to a suit filed by James Lockhart, a disabled worker retired from the post office. In 2002 the U.S. Treasury Department began garnishing Lockhart’s $874 monthly Social Security check and $10 a month in food stamps—eventually withholding $143 per month—to pay student loans he had taken out between 1984 and 1989. Lockhart sued the government three years ago to stop the action, saying he needed his entire pension to pay for medicines, food, and other living costs. He appealed to the Supreme Court after losing his case in federal courts.

Citing the 1996 Debt Collection Improvement Act, enacted under the Clinton administration, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor—a liberal icon on the high court—presented the court’s ruling. She argued that a 1991 law eliminated a 10-year limit for collecting student-loan obligations. That law, however, hadn’t specified the government could chop a retiree’s pension to recover student loans. That’s irrelevant, O’Connor said, citing an earlier Supreme Court opinion: “The fact that Congress may not have foreseen all of the consequences of a statutory enactment is not a sufficient reason for refusing to give effect to its plain meaning.”

The ruling came when personal debts in the United States have skyrocketed, fueled by falling real wages and rising health-care and other basic living costs. Household debt as a percentage of disposable income has risen from 60 percent in 1984 to about 115 percent in 2004.  
 
 
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