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What are Illinois laws with credit cards garnishing wages?

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I have a friend that is in the process of declaring bankruptcy and has a credit card garnishing her wages. She read on a legal aid site that they can only garnish wages after 320 dollars of paycheck, and only 15%. She is making about 300 and less and they are taking about 20% each check. Is this legal?

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Bankruptcy Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

One Response to “What are Illinois laws with credit cards garnishing wages?”

  1. Star Says:
    February 22nd, 2009 at 11:37 am

    It depends on when the order to garnish was served.

    Here is some information about garnishing wages in Illinois:

    The Illinois’ Code of Civil Procedure relating to wage garnishments was amended by the Illinois Legislature. The amendment, effective January 1, 2006, provides that for wage deductions, the amount of wages that may be applied toward a judgment is limited to the lesser of:
    1. 15% of gross weekly wages, or
    2. the amount by which disposable earnings for the week exceed the greater of 45 times the federal hourly wage or, under a wage deduction summons, the minimum hourly wage prescribed by the Minimum Wage Law (emphasis added to point out the change in the law—the Minimum Wage Law referred to is Illinois’ legislation).
    The following examples illustrate the impact of the change: The ABC Printing Company recently received three wage garnishments for three different employees.
    Employee A has gross weekly earnings of $750.00 and disposable weekly earnings (DWE) is calculated as $625.00
    1. 15% of $750 = $112.50 deduction
    2. a. (DWE = $625) – (45 X Federal Minimum Wage or $231.75) = 393.25 deduction;
    b. (DWE = $625) – (45 X Illinois Minimum Wage or $292.50) = $332.50 deduction.
    Garnishment amount is $112.50 (calculation #1)
    Employee B has gross weekly earnings of $260.00 and DWE is calculated as $200.00
    1. 15% of $260 = $30 deduction
    2. a. (DWE = $200) – (45 X Federal Minimum Wage or $231.75) = $00.00 deduction;
    b. (DWE = $200) – (45 X Illinois Minimum Wage or $292.50) = $00.00 deduction.
    Garnishment amount is $00.00 (calculation #2a or 2b—they are the same amount)
    Employee C has gross weekly earnings of $350.00 and DWE is calculated as $300.00
    1. 15% of $350 = $52.50 deduction
    2. a. (DWE = $300) – (45 X Federal Minimum Wage or $231.75) = $68.25 deduction;
    b. (DWE = $300) – (45 X Illinois Minimum Wage or $292.50) = $7.50 deduction.
    Garnishment amount is $7.50 (calculation #2b)
    In all cases, the garnishment amount is the least amount of the three calculations.

    Clarification on Effective Date
    The new withholding calculations apply only to wage deduction summons (wage garnishments) that are served on or after January 1, 2006. If you are currently withholding from an employee’s paycheck for a wage garnishment that was served on or before December 31, 2005, the ‘old’ calculation rules that you have been following remain in effect.