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For many US citizens, the financial landscape over the past five years has been challenging. Costs have escalated while salaries remains unchanged. Elevated mortgage rates have made homeownership a dismal prospect. The unemployment rate has been gradually increasing.

Many Americans have indicated they're putting off major life decisions, including starting a family or changing careers, because of economic uncertainty. But for a very small group of people, the past five-year period couldn't have been more successful.

Wealth Explosion

The fortune of the world's billionaires grew 54% in 2020, at the climax of the pandemic. And even during all the economic instability, the stock market has only kept rising. This increase has mostly helped just a small number of Americans: 10% of the population holds 93% of stock market wealth.

As uneven as this division seems, it's the financial structure working as it is existing today.

"Rich elites have bought their jets, they've acquired their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're acquiring senators and media outlets," explained wealth disparity expert Chuck Collins. "We're now entering this other chapter of extreme wealth extraction where the wealthy are preying on the system of inequality."

Mapping Economic Classes

To help others understand what exactly it means to be "wealthy" in the US, Collins adopts a concept from journalist Robert Frank who, in a 2007 book on the rich, envisioned the different levels of wealth as "Richistan" villages: Wealth Borough, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To update the concept, Collins organizes these "affluence districts" based on income levels:

• At the foundation, Affluent Town, are the 10 million Americans who have a annual salary of at least $110,000 and an total assets of over $1.5m.
• The villages get more select as wealth goes up: Lower Richistan has 2.6 million households who have wealth between $6m and $13m.
• Middle Richistan has 1.3 million households who have assets worth an average of $37m.
• Upper Richistan, made up of 130,000 Americans (roughly the size of a small city) has between $60m to $1bn in wealth.

In total, the residents of these villages make up the top 10% of the wealth income distribution, about 14 million Americans altogether, though their experiences vary dramatically.

"You could be in Lower Richistan, and you're still flying in the coach section of a commercial plane," Collins said. "Whereas in Upper Richistan, you're flying in a private jet. That's a really different cultural experience. You fly private, you have no investment in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system collapses – you're set."

Extreme Affluence Consequences

The summit in "Richistan" is Billionaireville, which is made up of about 800 American billionaires who are some of the world's richest. The control that this group has greatly exceeds those who are simply affluent, let alone the ordinary person who doesn't inhabit "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the progressive slogan "billionaires shouldn't exist" misses the point and has a "hint of elimination" to it.

"It's the difference between private conduct and a structure of regulations," Collins commented. "We should be focused on an economic system that channels so much wealth upward to the billionaires."

Fortune Building Strategies

To understand how wealth at the billionaire level works, Collins breaks it down into four parts: getting the wealth, defending the wealth, policy control and extreme wealth removal.

When many Americans think about wealth, they usually think solely about the first step, Collins said. People can create a reasonable quantity of wealth through starting or running a successful business, which could get them membership in Affluent Town.

But getting to Billionaireville requires serious investment and planning in those next three steps. Collins describes what he calls the "wealth defense industry": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their skills to ensure that the super rich are being deliberate about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a broad range of tools such as financial instruments, offshore bank accounts, undisclosed businesses, charitable foundations and other vehicles to hold assets," he writes.

Government Power and Extreme Wealth Removal

To further a wealth defense strategy, a family needs government backing. Wealth of over $40m translates to political power, Collins says, and can be used to defend wealth and maintain expansion.

The last stage is a different kind of wealth accumulation, one that Collins calls "maximum taking" to describe how the wealthy have come to affect nearly every single part of an Americans' daily existence largely through investment firms, which allows wealthy individuals to invest in private companies.

"Private equity is looking for those sectors of the economy where they can squeeze things a little bit harder," Collins said. "One thing I don't think people understand is these billionaire private-equity funds are what happens when so much wealth is stored in so few hands, and they can essentially pivot and say, 'Where else can we generate returns out of the economy?' Healthcare? Great. Mobile home parks? These people can't go anywhere, [so] you can increase their costs."

Tangible Effects

The results of this inequality go beyond the wealth getting wealthier. It's about people spending additional funds for their healthcare, rent and vet bills without seeing any substantial income improvement. And Collins said the hardship and discontent of this kind of society can lead to profound dissatisfaction.

"The most powerful affluent rulers understand people are being excluded [and] are economically suffering," Collins said, adding that Republicans have been good at connecting with a potent "fake grassroots movement".

Political Reality

The contradiction, Collins points out in his book, is that government officials have appointed a string of billionaires to cabinet positions. Along with tech billionaires who had temporary but significant roles overseeing substantial reductions to the federal workforce, other important roles for commerce, treasury, education and the interior are also all billionaires.

This government structure, along with help from legislative supporters, helped pass significant fiscal policies, which will make permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

The Path Forward

While political parties continue to argue that foreign entry and unfavorable commercial treaties are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the issue remains: Will the opposing party, which has also been controlled by the billionaires and big money, be able to seriously confront the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Progressive politicians, he argues, know what policies are needed to "change wealth distribution", including substantial modifications to the tax system, raising the minimum wage and empowering worker groups.

"It was so, so close, and the legislation really did represent the will of the most of people who really want lawmakers to address some of these pressing issues," Collins said. "Oligarchic power is not about developing so much as preventing. It's easier to block than it is to make something significant occur, but the muscle memory is there. We know what that looks like."

Collins is positive that there can be change, but said it would require ongoing legislative effort.

"It may be quickly that the pendulum swings back, and then it really is about sustaining a continuous public campaign to make progress on this extreme inequality we're living in," he said. "We can solve this. It is fixable."