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To numerous individuals in the United States, the economic climate over the last half-decade has been difficult. Costs have soared while pay remains flat. High mortgage rates have made buying a home a dismal prospect. The unemployment rate has been slowly rising.

The majority of individuals have indicated they're delaying major life decisions, including raising children or moving to new employment, because of the instability. But for a select few of people, the past five-year period couldn't have been any better.

Wealth Explosion

The fortune of the world's billionaires expanded 54% in 2020, at the peak of the pandemic. And even amid all the market volatility, the stock market has only kept rising. This increase has primarily advantaged just a small number of Americans: 10% of the population owns 93% of stock market wealth.

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

"The wealthy have acquired their jets, they've bought their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're acquiring senators and media outlets," stated inequality researcher 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."

Mapping Economic Classes

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

To modernize the concept, Collins categorizes these "wealth villages" 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 restricted 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 circumstances vary dramatically.

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

Ultra-Wealth Impact

The peak 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 average American who doesn't inhabit "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the political catchphrase "end extreme wealth" doesn't capture the real problem and has a "suggestion of eradication" to it.

"It's the difference between personal actions and a structure of regulations," Collins explained. "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 divides it into four parts: acquiring fortune, protecting assets, government influence and hyper-extraction.

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

But getting to Billionaireville requires serious investment and strategy 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 wide variety of tools such as trusts, offshore bank accounts, undisclosed businesses, non-profit organizations and other vehicles to hold assets," he explains.

Political Influence and Hyper-Extraction

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

The ultimate step is a different kind of wealth accumulation, one that Collins calls "maximum taking" to describe how the wealthy have come to touch 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 sectors of the economy where they can increase profits 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 parked 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 raise their rents."

The Real Consequences

The consequences 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 substantial income improvement. And Collins said the pain and frustration of this kind of society can lead to profound dissatisfaction.

"The most powerful wealthy elites understand people are being marginalized [and] are economically suffering," Collins said, adding that Republicans have been good at accessing a potent "phony populism".

Government Truth

The contradiction, Collins points out in his book, is that elected representatives have appointed a series of billionaires to administrative posts. Along with tech billionaires who had short yet influential roles overseeing significant decreases to the federal workforce, other crucial appointments for commerce, treasury, education and the interior are also all billionaires.

This political landscape, along with help from legislative supporters, helped pass major tax legislation, which will make permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

The Path Forward

While legislative bodies continue to argue that immigration and bad trade agreements are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the issue remains: Will the opposing party, which has also been influenced by the billionaires and big money, be able to meaningfully address the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Progressive politicians, he argues, know what policies are needed to "change wealth distribution", including deep changes to the tax system, raising the minimum wage and strengthening unions.

"It was so, so close, and the legislation really did embody the will of the majority of people who really want lawmakers to solve some of these urgent problems," Collins said. "Wealthy influence is not about creating so much as stopping. 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 hopeful that there can be change, but said it would require sustained political momentum.

"It may be before we know it that the tide turns, and then it really is about sustaining a sustained really popular movement to make progress on this extreme inequality we're living in," he said. "We can solve this. It is fixable."