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For many US citizens, the financial landscape over the recent five-year span has been challenging. Costs have escalated while wages remains unchanged. Steep mortgage rates have made homeownership a grim prospect. The unemployment rate has been creeping up.

The majority of individuals have indicated they're postponing major life decisions, including starting a family or changing careers, because of economic uncertainty. But for a select few of people, the last five years couldn't have been more successful.

Wealth Explosion

The fortune of the world's billionaires expanded 54% in 2020, at the peak of the pandemic. And even throughout all the financial uncertainty, the stock market has only continued to grow. This growth has largely benefited just a tiny percentage of Americans: 10% of the population controls 93% of stock market wealth.

Despite the imbalance as this division seems, it's the system working as it is currently designed.

"Affluent individuals have acquired their jets, they've acquired their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're buying senators and media outlets," commented economic inequality analyst Chuck Collins. "We're now stepping into this other chapter of maximum resource removal where the wealthy are taking advantage of the system of inequality."

Understanding Wealth Tiers

To help others comprehend what exactly it means to be "rich" in the US, Collins utilizes a concept from journalist Robert Frank who, in a 2007 book on the rich, conceptualized the different levels of wealth as "Richistan" villages: Prosperity Village, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To contemporize the concept, Collins organizes these "economic communities" based on income levels:

• At the base level, Affluent Town, are the 10 million Americans who have a family earnings of at least $110,000 and an net worth 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 constitute 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 noted. "Whereas in Upper Richistan, you're traveling via a private jet. That's a really distinct lifestyle. You fly private, you have no interest in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system collapses – you're set."

The Billionaireville Effect

The summit in "Richistan" is Billionaireville, which is made up of about 800 American billionaires who are some of the world's wealthiest. The influence that this group has substantially outweighs those who are simply wealthy, let alone the ordinary person who doesn't live in "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the activist mantra "abolish billionaires" misses the point and has a "suggestion of eradication" to it.

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

Fortune Building Strategies

To understand how wealth at the billionaire level works, Collins separates it into four parts: acquiring fortune, defending the wealth, political capture and maximum resource extraction.

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

But getting to Billionaireville requires significant resources and tactics in those next three steps. Collins describes what he calls the "asset protection sector": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their expertise to ensure that the super rich are being calculated about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a extensive selection of tools such as financial instruments, international accounts, undisclosed businesses, non-profit organizations and other mechanisms to hold assets," he details.

Government Power and Extreme Wealth Removal

To advance a wealth defense strategy, a family needs political support. Wealth of over $40m converts to political power, Collins says, and can be used to defend wealth and ensure continued growth.

The final phase is a different kind of wealth accumulation, one that Collins calls "hyper extraction" to describe how the wealthy have come to affect nearly every single part of an Americans' everyday life largely through investment firms, which allows wealthy individuals to support private companies.

"Private equity is looking for those areas 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 basically shift and say, 'Where else can we extract profits out of the economy?' Healthcare? Great. Mobile home parks? These people can't go anywhere, [so] you can boost their expenses."

Tangible Effects

The results of this inequality go beyond the wealth getting wealthier. It's about people facing higher costs for their healthcare, rent and vet bills without seeing any significant salary growth. And Collins said the pain and frustration of this kind of society can lead to deep discontent.

"The most powerful oligarchs understand people are being left behind [and] are economically suffering," Collins said, adding that Republicans have been good at tapping into a potent "false common-man appeal".

Political Reality

The paradox, Collins points out in his book, is that government officials have appointed a series of billionaires to government roles. Along with affluent innovators who had short yet influential roles overseeing massive cuts to the federal workforce, other crucial appointments for commerce, treasury, education and the interior are also all billionaires.

This government structure, along with help from congressional allies, helped pass huge tax bills, which will make permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

The Path Forward

While legislative bodies continue to argue that immigration and poor economic deals are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the question becomes: Will the opposing party, which has also been controlled by the billionaires and big money, be able to meaningfully address the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Liberal leaders, he argues, know what policies are needed to "change wealth distribution", including substantial modifications to the tax system, boosting the minimum wage and supporting labor organizations.

"It was so, so close, and the bill really did represent the will of the bulk of people who really want lawmakers to solve some of these pressing issues," Collins said. "Elite control is not about creating so much as preventing. It's easier to block than it is to make something substantial take place, but the historical precedent is there. We know what that looks like."

Collins is positive that there can be change, but said it would require sustained political momentum.

"It may be sooner than expected that the balance shifts, and then it really is about preserving a ongoing grassroots effort to make progress on this extreme inequality we're living in," he said. "We can fix this. It is fixable."