The assumption that a high income means financial security is one of the most persistent — and damaging — myths in American economic life. When I sat down with Randall Peralta in the community room of a church in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood last March, he had just finished a ten-hour shift running conduit on a commercial build downtown. He was methodical in the way he spoke, choosing each word carefully, the way someone does when they’ve rehearsed the story in their own head many times and still haven’t made peace with it.
I’d been introduced to Randall by Pastor Ernesto Villanueva, who leads a mid-sized congregation that quietly runs a financial counseling ministry out of its back office. The pastor had mentioned Randall almost offhandedly — “You should talk to this man. He earns good money and still can’t sleep at night.” That line stayed with me, and within two weeks I was across a folding table from Randall, a legal pad between us, listening to him explain how two separate financial catastrophes had arrived within four months of each other.
The Setup: A Six-Figure Income That Wasn’t Enough of a Buffer
Randall Peralta is 47, a union electrician and member of IBEW Local 332, and in 2024 he brought home approximately $141,000 in gross wages — well above the California median household income of roughly $85,000. On paper, he looks comfortable. In reality, he’s the sole financial support for his mother, Lorena, 74, who lives with him in the three-bedroom house he bought in 2017 in the Berryessa neighborhood of San Jose.
He also carries $89,400 in federal student loan debt from a master’s degree in construction management he completed in 2019 — a credential he pursued to move into project oversight roles. The degree hasn’t translated into a promotion yet, and the loans, currently in repayment under an income-driven plan, run him $987 a month.
“People see the union wage and they think you’re set,” Randall told me. “They don’t see the loan payment. They don’t see what it costs to keep my mom comfortable. They definitely don’t see what happened with the insurance.”
The Insurance Cancellation: When a Claim Becomes a Liability
In August 2023, a slow leak behind the master bathroom wall caused extensive water damage to Randall’s home — mold in the subfloor, warped drywall, compromised insulation. He filed a claim with his homeowner’s insurer, a regional carrier that had covered the property since 2018. The claim paid out $34,200 after the deductible. Four months later, in December 2023, the insurer sent a non-renewal notice. His policy would terminate on February 14, 2024.
California has seen a dramatic contraction in the homeowner’s insurance market, with multiple major carriers restricting new policies or exiting the state entirely. According to the California Department of Insurance, non-renewals statewide increased sharply between 2022 and 2024 as carriers cited wildfire exposure and reinsurance costs — even for properties, like Randall’s, that had no fire risk flag on record.
His previous premium had been $3,900 annually. The new quote — $8,400 per year — represented an additional $4,500 in annual costs on top of a budget already stretched by his loan payment and his mother’s prescriptions, which run approximately $340 a month out of pocket after Medicare Part D coverage.
He ultimately landed on the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, at $5,100 a year — still a 31 percent increase over his prior premium, and with significantly less coverage. His mortgage servicer required proof of insurance within 30 days of the lapse or it would force-place a policy at an even higher cost.
The Student Loan Maze: IDR Plans and the SAVE Uncertainty
While the insurance crisis was unfolding, Randall’s student loan situation was also shifting beneath him. He had enrolled in the SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) plan in late 2023, which had lowered his payment from $1,210 to $987 a month — a meaningful reduction. But by mid-2024, federal courts had blocked key provisions of the SAVE plan, creating widespread confusion about which borrowers were in forbearance, which were accruing interest, and what counted toward eventual forgiveness.
According to Federal Student Aid, borrowers affected by SAVE litigation-related forbearance periods were not losing progress toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness — but Randall doesn’t work for a qualifying public employer, so PSLF was never an option for him. He was watching the news about SAVE with the close attention of someone who understands exactly how much each month of uncertainty costs him.
“I did the math,” Randall said, spreading his hands on the table. “If I stay on this plan and nothing changes, I’m paying until I’m 67. My mom will be 94. That’s the plan.” He said it without bitterness, more like a man reading a blueprint he doesn’t love but has to work with.
The Turning Point: Finding Programs Built for People Like Him
The shift in Randall’s situation came not from a government program landing in his lap, but from a financial counselor at the church ministry — a retired CPA named Gloria Tran — who spent three sessions with him mapping his full financial picture. What she found surprised Randall: he was leaving money on the table in a specific, correctable way.
Randall had not been maximizing his pre-tax contributions to his union’s 401(k) and had not enrolled in his employer’s Health Savings Account, despite being on a high-deductible health plan. By maxing both — $23,000 into the 401(k) for 2024, plus $3,850 into the HSA — he would reduce his adjusted gross income by roughly $26,850. That reduction had a downstream effect on his IDR payment calculation, which is based on discretionary income tied to AGI.
Gloria also flagged the California Mortgage Relief Program, which by early 2024 had largely exhausted its original $1 billion in federal Homeowner Assistance Fund dollars — Randall wasn’t eligible anyway since he hadn’t missed payments — but she helped him identify a state-backed premium assistance inquiry through the Department of Insurance’s market conduct division regarding the non-renewal. The inquiry didn’t reverse the cancellation, but it did produce documentation Randall could use if he chose to pursue a complaint.
“No one handed me a check,” Randall said. “That’s what people don’t understand. You have to go find what exists and figure out if it applies to you. It’s a second job.”
The Outcome: Partial Relief, Persistent Pressure
By January 2025, Randall had implemented the retirement and HSA changes for the 2025 plan year. His IDR payment, recalculated in March 2025 based on his lower 2024 AGI, dropped to $803 a month — a reduction of $184 from where he’d been. That’s roughly $2,200 back in his annual budget. His federal tax refund for tax year 2024 came in at $4,100, which he used to replenish an emergency fund he’d drawn down during the insurance transition.
He’s still paying $5,100 a year for the FAIR Plan plus an additional $1,440 for a separate difference-in-conditions policy his mortgage servicer strongly recommended. His total housing insurance cost is now $6,540 annually — $2,640 more than the policy that dropped him. According to the IRS, homeowner’s insurance premiums on a primary residence are not deductible for most taxpayers, so there’s no federal tax offset available to him there.
The student loan balance, as of April 2026, sits at $84,700 — down from $89,400, but slowly. At current payment levels, he’s paying more in interest than principal each month, a reality of his income-driven plan structure that Gloria was careful to walk him through without sugarcoating it.
His mother, Lorena, was approved for a low-income subsidy through Medicare Part D in early 2025 that reduced her prescription costs from $340 to roughly $90 a month — a change Randall called “the one thing that actually felt like a win.” That $250 monthly reduction came after Randall noticed on the Medicare.gov website that Lorena’s income and asset levels qualified her for Extra Help, something neither of them had known to apply for.
What Randall’s Story Says About Who Relief Is Built For
Randall Peralta’s situation doesn’t fit the profile most relief programs are designed around. He earns too much to qualify for many direct assistance programs, but not enough to absorb compounding financial shocks without restructuring nearly every financial decision he makes. He’s a caregiver, a homeowner, a borrower, and a worker — all simultaneously, with no margin for error.
What changed his trajectory wasn’t a new government program. It was granular knowledge: understanding how his AGI connected to his loan payment, how Medicare’s Extra Help program worked, how to file a formal inquiry with the state insurance commissioner. That knowledge came from a retired CPA working out of a church community room, which says something honest about where working people in financial distress actually find help.
When I left the church that evening, Randall walked me to the parking lot. He mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that he’d started a spreadsheet tracking every potential program, deadline, and recertification date — color-coded, with reminder alerts. “I can’t control whether they pass a new law,” he said. “I can control whether I’m ready when they do.”
That’s not a resolution. It’s a man building a system for uncertainty — which, for a lot of Americans right now, is the best outcome available.
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