This guide handles a garnishment or a bank levy from the day the account freezes through the exemption hearing, and separately advises employers and creditors. It begins with the gap between substantively exempt and procedurally protected that defines the field, and with the one federal rule that closes it automatically for directly deposited benefits. It works through the wage garnishment cap and its correct calculation, the state protections that go further including the head of household exemption, the categories of income exempt at their source and the commingling problem that defeats them, and the administrative systems that capture funds before any court is involved. It sets out the exemption claim sequence with its short deadlines, the prejudgment attachment cases that supply the due process framework, employer obligations and liabilities, and the preventive steps that would eliminate most of these disputes if anyone gave the advice in time.