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To numerous US citizens, the financial landscape over the last half-decade has been tough. Costs have escalated while salaries remains stagnant. Elevated mortgage rates have made purchasing property a dismal prospect. The unemployment rate has been slowly rising.

The majority of individuals have stated they're putting off major life decisions, including starting a family or moving to new employment, because of financial volatility. But for a select few of people, the past five-year period couldn't have been more successful.

Wealth Explosion

The assets of the world's billionaires expanded 54% in 2020, at the peak of the pandemic. And even throughout all the market volatility, the stock market has only persisted in expanding. This expansion has largely benefited just a small number of Americans: 10% of the population owns 93% of stock market wealth.

However unequal as this division seems, it's the economic framework working as it is existing today.

"The wealthy have purchased their jets, they've purchased their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're buying 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 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 "Affluencia" villages: Affluent Town, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To update the concept, Collins organizes these "wealth villages" based on income levels:

• At the foundation, Affluent Town, are the 10 million Americans who have a family earnings of at least $110,000 and an overall wealth 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.

Altogether, the residents of these villages make up 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 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 investment in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system collapses – you're set."

Extreme Affluence Consequences

The peak in "Richistan" is Billionaireville, which is made up of about 800 American billionaires who are some of the world's richest. The influence that this group has far surpasses those who are simply well-off, let alone the typical citizen who doesn't reside in "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the political catchphrase "end extreme wealth" misses the point and has a "suggestion of eradication" to it.

"It's the separation between individual behaviors and a structure of regulations," Collins said. "We should be concerned about 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 divides it into four parts: accumulating assets, defending the wealth, 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 reasonable quantity of wealth through establishing or managing 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 "asset protection sector": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their knowledge to ensure that the super rich are being strategic about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a broad range of tools such as legal entities, foreign deposits, anonymous shell companies, non-profit organizations and other vehicles to hold assets," he details.

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 defend wealth and protect its accumulation.

The last stage is a different kind of wealth accumulation, one that Collins calls "hyper extraction" 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 fund 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 stored in so few hands, and they can kind of turn around 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 increase their costs."

Tangible Effects

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 meaningful wage increases. And Collins said the hardship and discontent of this kind of society can lead to profound dissatisfaction.

"The most powerful wealthy elites understand people are being marginalized [and] are monetarily hurting," Collins said, adding that Republicans have been good at accessing a potent "false common-man appeal".

Policy Situation

The contradiction, Collins points out in his book, is that elected representatives have appointed a succession of billionaires to cabinet positions. Along with affluent innovators who had temporary but significant roles overseeing significant decreases 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 political partners, helped pass significant fiscal policies, which will make enduring decreases for the wealthy and corporations.

Potential Changes

While legislative bodies continue to argue that immigration and poor economic deals are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the challenge is: Will the other major party, which has also been captured by the billionaires and big money, be able to effectively tackle the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Left-leaning officials, he argues, know what policies are needed to "reverse the updraft of wealth", including deep changes to the tax system, boosting the minimum wage and empowering worker groups.

"It was so, so close, and the legislation really did reflect the will of the majority of people who really want lawmakers to address some of these critical challenges," Collins said. "Wealthy influence is not about creating so much as preventing. 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 sustained political momentum.

"It may be quickly 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 solve this. It is solvable."