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Among countless Americans, the financial landscape over the past five years has been difficult. Prices have skyrocketed while wages remains stagnant. High mortgage rates have made purchasing property a dismal prospect. The jobless rate has been gradually increasing.

Many Americans have indicated they're delaying major life decisions, including raising children or switching jobs, because of economic uncertainty. But for a very small group of people, the last five years couldn't have been more prosperous.

The Billionaire Boom

The wealth of the world's billionaires increased 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 expansion has largely benefited just a limited group of Americans: 10% of the population holds 93% of stock market wealth.

Despite the imbalance as this division seems, it's the financial structure working as it is presently configured.

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

Mapping Economic Classes

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

To update the concept, Collins classifies 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.

Collectively, the residents of these villages comprise 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 explained. "Whereas in Upper Richistan, you're flying in a private jet. That's a really separate reality. You fly private, you have no stakes in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system shuts down – 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 most affluent. The power that this group has greatly exceeds those who are simply affluent, let alone the ordinary person who doesn't reside in "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the progressive slogan "end extreme wealth" fails to address the core issue and has a "hint of elimination" to it.

"It's the separation 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."

Fortune Building Strategies

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

When many Americans think about wealth, they usually think only about the first step, Collins said. People can create a modest amount 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 "wealth defense industry": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their expertise to ensure that the super rich are being deliberate about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a wide variety of tools such as trusts, international accounts, anonymous shell companies, philanthropic entities and other mechanisms to hold assets," he writes.

Political Influence and Hyper-Extraction

To enhance a wealth defense strategy, a family needs policy assistance. Wealth of over $40m translates 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 "extreme removal" to describe how the wealthy have come to influence nearly every single part of an Americans' daily existence largely through investment firms, which allows wealthy individuals to support private companies.

"Private equity is searching 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 parked in so few hands, and they can basically shift 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 raise their rents."

The Real Consequences

The effects 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 meaningful wage increases. And Collins said the suffering and anger of this kind of society can lead to serious unrest.

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

Government Truth

The irony, Collins points out in his book, is that elected representatives have appointed a string of billionaires to cabinet positions. Along with tech billionaires who had brief but powerful roles overseeing substantial reductions to the federal workforce, other crucial appointments for commerce, treasury, education and the interior are also all billionaires.

This administrative framework, along with help from legislative supporters, helped pass significant fiscal policies, which will make lasting reductions for the wealthy and corporations.

The Path Forward

While political parties continue to argue that foreign entry and poor economic deals are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the issue remains: Will the other major 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 "alter economic flow", including substantial modifications to the tax system, increasing the minimum wage and strengthening unions.

"It was so, so close, and the legislation really did represent the will of the most of people who really want lawmakers to solve some of these critical challenges," Collins said. "Elite control is not about creating so much as blocking. It's easier to block than it is to make something meaningful happen, 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 before we know it that the tide turns, and then it really is about maintaining a sustained really popular movement to make progress on this severe disparity we're living in," he said. "We can fix this. It is addressable."