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For many individuals in the United States, the financial landscape over the past five years has been difficult. Expenses have skyrocketed while salaries remains stagnant. Steep mortgage rates have made buying a home a grim prospect. The jobless rate has been creeping up.

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

Wealth Explosion

The wealth 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 continued to grow. This expansion has primarily advantaged just a small number of Americans: 10% of the population owns 93% of stock market wealth.

Despite the imbalance as this division seems, it's the system working as it is existing today.

"The wealthy have purchased their jets, they've bought their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're buying senators and media outlets," explained economic inequality analyst Chuck Collins. "We're now stepping into this other chapter of maximum resource removal where the wealthy are preying on the system of inequality."

Understanding Wealth Tiers

To help others understand what exactly it means to be "wealthy" in the US, Collins utilizes 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 contemporize the concept, Collins categorizes these "wealth villages" 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 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 comprise 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 said. "Whereas in Upper Richistan, you're flying in a private jet. That's a really distinct lifestyle. 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 influence that this group has far surpasses those who are simply well-off, let alone the typical citizen who doesn't live in "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the political catchphrase "billionaires shouldn't exist" doesn't capture the real problem and has a "suggestion of eradication" to it.

"It's the separation between private conduct and a framework of policies," 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 divides it into four parts: accumulating assets, securing fortune, political capture and extreme wealth removal.

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 creating or operating a successful business, which could get them residency in Affluent Town.

But getting to Billionaireville requires substantial commitment and planning in those next three steps. Collins describes what he calls the "asset protection sector": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their knowledge 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, undisclosed businesses, philanthropic entities and other methods to hold assets," he details.

Political Influence and Hyper-Extraction

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

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 searching for those areas of the economy where they can increase profits a little bit harder," Collins said. "One thing I don't think people realize is these billionaire private-equity funds are what happens when so much wealth is accumulated 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."

Tangible Effects

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 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 left behind [and] are monetarily hurting," Collins said, adding that right-leaning leaders have been good at tapping into a potent "false common-man appeal".

Government Truth

The paradox, Collins points out in his book, is that political leaders have appointed a series of billionaires to government roles. Along with tech billionaires who had short yet influential roles overseeing massive cuts 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 huge tax bills, which will make lasting reductions for the wealthy and corporations.

Future Solutions

While political parties continue to argue that immigration and poor economic deals are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the question becomes: 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.

Liberal leaders, he argues, know what policies are needed to "reverse the updraft of wealth", including significant reforms to the tax system, boosting the minimum wage and empowering worker groups.

"It was so, so close, and the law really did represent the will of the majority of people who really want lawmakers to solve some of these urgent problems," Collins said. "Elite control is not about developing so much as preventing. It's easier to block than it is to make something meaningful happen, 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 sooner than expected 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 fix this. It is solvable."