this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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Everything else aside, why the fuck can they garnish 35% of a low income worker wage. If garnishing is a thing, there should be some kinds of means testing based on income that makes it a sliding scale that is substantially lower than 35% for a McDonalds worker.
I recall reading something about some states either trying or succeeding to bring back debtor prisons.
Utah for one, and not the only one.
In Utah, its an end run around the prohibition on debtor's prisons, but the supreme court is likely to overturn that after the next presidential election is successfully rigged for their party and more Blue States fall to them to be fixed.
But they will find debt, some buy distressed debt, the debtor sells the unpaid debt for a fraction of it, someone buys it, then they file a case in court to collect, often in the big city, salt lake, regardless of where the person accused lives. Then they get default judgements when the person doesn't show up, and put in requests (then or in resulting hearings about collecting on those judgements,) they ask the judge to hold them in contempt.
The judges almost always do, they see themselves as an arm of big business and LE, not the neutral arbiter between them and the accused. If the person comes up with the money to pay off the judgement, they are released from jail, if not they serve up to whatever the cut off is for those types of contempt judgements, 90 days or 180 I forget. But they can just file another action and do it again after the person is let out.
Then the accused of course is charged for their time in jail as well. Idk how Utah deals with that debt, but in other states it's not collected by the state like fines and fees, which lead directly to being jailed, a day for every 10 or 20 dollars owed last I heard. Fines that get doubled a couple of times and see other fees thrown on top. But those jail fees for the stay are sent to collections, and someone could well buy that debt for pennies on the dollar, and start a new case filing in civil court.
I personally don't accept the 35% as a 100% true and pure fact, without some citations. However, the percentage obviously isn't the point here, so I wouldn't get too hung up on the exact number. Even if it was 3.5%, this general situation is still inexcusable.
For the record, most places limit wage garnishment for debts at something like 10% - 25%. Certain types of debt, like student loan debt and medical debt, are often lower or on the lower end. And lower income, with higher costs like having children, can also reduce the max %.
In my state it's up to 25%, you can guess what % is chose every time. Ask me how I know, currently losing 25% each check right now. It hits hard.
Child support used to take a full half of my income. So, I can believe it.
Day I got the letter saying I had fully repaid that shit?Fucking brought me to tears.
Child support isn't treated the same way as consumer debt in pretty much any jurisdiction in the USA that I'm aware of. Things like that and possibly stuff like alimony or similar legal agreements pretty much always have higher limits and more tools available to collect.
So, it would be a bit of a mistake, in my opinion, to equate child support and its laws with medical / consumer debt.
I know it wouldn't play out like this, but I can just imagine owing 50% on child support, then that 35% garnished for medical debts, and both departments are like fuck you we want our money to each other so they garnish 85% instead of working with each other.
Last I checked near me, these guardrails exist, but I’m sure in some red state they’re allowed to garnish wages for medical debt with no restrictions.
Propublica did a piece a year or two back about one of those hospitals in a poor area in one of the shitholy states, LA I think, that was suing people for medical debt, going after their paltry assets. Insult to injury is them charging obscene amounts of money for routine procedures, and if you rejected taking someone to the hospital you could get criminally charged to boot. It is a service you have to avail yourself of, where there is no alternatives in any area usually, whereby their prices are rigged against poor people, and higher echelons aren't uncheated either, especially moreso now with the US and States taking off the mask of fairness and openly embracing the corruption for the rich.
But that hospital kind of stopped after the reporting and said like oops, kind of a mistake, or something. Sunlight really does disinfect to a degree still.
Well that's good to hear there's at least some sanity out there.
Federal law should cap that at 25% and that should be after taxes and related items are taken out. It's also shared between all garnishments, so if you have 2 or 3 garnishments it shouldn't exceed 25% overall. This is still a huge amount, but that should be as high as it can go in the US. Some states do have lower limits, but a 35% rate should be illegal in the US.