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To numerous Americans, the financial landscape over the past five years has been difficult. Prices have skyrocketed while pay remains unchanged. Elevated mortgage rates have made purchasing property a bleak prospect. The rate of unemployment has been creeping up.

Most people have indicated they're delaying major life decisions, including raising children or changing careers, because of the instability. But for a select few of people, the last five years couldn't have been any better.

Fortune Expansion

The wealth of the world's billionaires increased 54% in 2020, at the climax of the pandemic. And even during all the market volatility, the stock market has only persisted in expanding. This growth has largely benefited just a small number of Americans: 10% of the population controls 93% of stock market wealth.

As uneven as this allocation seems, it's the financial structure working as it is presently configured.

"The wealthy have acquired their jets, they've purchased their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're buying senators and media outlets," stated inequality researcher Chuck Collins. "We're now entering this other chapter of maximum resource removal where the wealthy are taking advantage of the system of inequality."

Mapping Economic Classes

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

To modernize the concept, Collins categorizes these "affluence districts" based on income levels:

• At the lowest tier, Affluent Town, are the 10 million Americans who have a household income of at least $110,000 and an net worth of over $1.5m.
• The villages get more exclusive 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.

Collectively, the residents of these villages make up the top 10% of the wealth income distribution, about 14 million Americans altogether, though their lifestyles 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 distinct lifestyle. You fly private, you have no investment in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system fails – you're set."

Ultra-Wealth Impact

The highest hill 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 greatly exceeds those who are simply affluent, let alone the ordinary person who doesn't live in "Richistan" at all.

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

"It's the difference between personal actions and a structure of regulations," Collins said. "We should be focused on an economic system that funnels so much wealth upward to the billionaires."

Wealth Accumulation Mechanisms

To understand how wealth at the billionaire level works, Collins breaks it down into four parts: accumulating assets, securing fortune, government influence and hyper-extraction.

When many Americans think about wealth, they usually think only 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 membership in Affluent Town.

But getting to Billionaireville requires substantial commitment and strategy in those next three steps. Collins describes what he calls the "fortune security field": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their expertise to ensure that the super rich are being strategic about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a wide variety of tools such as financial instruments, offshore bank accounts, anonymous shell companies, philanthropic entities and other methods to hold assets," he writes.

Government Power and Extreme Wealth Removal

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

The ultimate step is a different kind of wealth accumulation, one that Collins calls "hyper extraction" to describe how the wealthy have come to touch nearly every single part of an Americans' daily existence largely through capital management, which allows wealthy individuals to fund private companies.

"Private equity is looking for those sectors of the economy where they can extract value a little bit harder," Collins said. "One thing I don't think people comprehend is these billionaire private-equity funds are what happens when so much wealth is accumulated in so few hands, and they can kind of turn around 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 boost their expenses."

Tangible Effects

The results of this inequality go beyond the wealth getting wealthier. It's about people paying more for their healthcare, rent and vet bills without seeing any significant salary growth. And Collins said the suffering and anger of this kind of society can lead to profound dissatisfaction.

"The most powerful oligarchs understand people are being marginalized [and] are financially struggling," Collins said, adding that right-leaning leaders have been good at connecting with a potent "false common-man appeal".

Government Truth

The irony, Collins points out in his book, is that government officials have appointed a succession of billionaires to administrative posts. Along with affluent innovators who had brief but powerful roles overseeing significant decreases 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 political partners, helped pass huge tax bills, which will make permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

Future Solutions

While government groups continue to argue that immigration and poor economic deals are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the issue remains: Will the other major party, which has also been captured by the billionaires and big money, be able to seriously confront the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Left-leaning officials, he argues, know what policies are needed to "alter economic flow", including substantial modifications to the tax system, boosting the minimum wage and strengthening unions.

"It was so, so close, and the law really did embody the will of the bulk of people who really want lawmakers to fix some of these critical challenges," Collins said. "Wealthy influence is not about developing so much as blocking. It's easier to block than it is to make something significant occur, but the institutional knowledge is there. We know what that looks like."

Collins is hopeful 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 ongoing grassroots effort to make progress on this extreme inequality we're living in," he said. "We can solve this. It is addressable."