Grand Canyon Times

The vast majority of Hill staff could fall under President Joe Biden's qualification threshold for his loan forgiveness plan, making them eligible to receive a minimum of $10,000 in debt repayment. According to salary data, at least 91% of U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona's staff could qualify.

This percentage is merely an estimation as there are several unknown factors, including whether or not the staffers went to college, if they took out loans, if they still have loans or if they had a full-ride scholarship, as well as the total household income of Hill staffers.

Salary data retrieved from LegiStorm.com shows that an estimated 91.1% of Kelly's staff could be eligible for the president's student loan forgiveness plan. This translates to $510,000 going directly to the staff of the U.S. senator.

Since a vast majority of Hill staff makes under the $125,000 threshold set by the White House, Nearly 2,000 House and Senate employees, some of who are already enrolled in a student loan repayment assistance program offered to staff, could benefit from the $10,000 in federal debt cancellation and another $10,000 for those that were Pell Grant recipients, Politico reports.

"This is ultimately a program designed to directly benefit the pocketbooks of affluent, urban, college-educated elites, who now comprise a significant swathe of the Democratic Party’s voting base," Jack McPherrin said in an opinion piece titled "Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Scheme Continues Democrats’ War Upon America" published on RedState. 

Kelly, who's up for re-election in November, is a strong supporter of Biden's debt forgiveness plan.

"The reality is college costs too much, and the federal government should not be profiting off of young graduates," he told Axios. He also said he's glad the plan is "more targeted" than other proposals that would cancel all student loan debt.

According to Fox News, Biden announced Aug. 24 that for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year, he will cancel $10,000 of federal student loan debt. For borrowers who attended college on Pell Grants, Biden's forgiveness extends up to $20,000 in student loan debt. In addition, Biden has extended pandemic-era payment freezes through the end of December.

Biden campaigned on cancelling student debt, according to Forbes.

“I’m going to eliminate your student debt if you come from a family [making less] than $125,000 and went to a public university,” Biden said on the 2020 campaign trail. “I’m going to make sure everyone gets $10,000 knocked off of their student debt” in response to economic hardships caused by the pandemic.”