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Among countless Americans, the economic climate over the last half-decade has been challenging. Prices have escalated while salaries remains stagnant. Elevated mortgage rates have made purchasing property a bleak prospect. The unemployment rate has been creeping up.

The majority of individuals have stated they're putting off major life decisions, including raising children or changing careers, because of financial volatility. But for a very small group of people, the past five-year period couldn't have been more prosperous.

Wealth Explosion

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

As uneven as this distribution seems, it's the economic framework working as it is presently configured.

"The wealthy have purchased 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 entering this other chapter of maximum resource removal where the wealthy are preying on 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: Wealth Borough, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

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

• At the base level, 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 constitute 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 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 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 most affluent. 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 progressive slogan "billionaires shouldn't exist" misses the point and has a "whiff of exterminism" to it.

"It's the separation between individual behaviors and a structure of regulations," Collins commented. "We should be worried about an economic system that funnels so much wealth upward to the billionaires."

The Four Pillars of Billionaire Wealth

To understand how wealth at the billionaire level works, Collins breaks it down into four parts: getting the wealth, protecting assets, government influence and maximum resource extraction.

When many Americans think about wealth, they usually think exclusively 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 residency in Affluent Town.

But getting to Billionaireville requires serious investment 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 skills to ensure that the super rich are being calculated about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a wide variety of tools such as legal entities, foreign deposits, undisclosed businesses, non-profit organizations and other methods to hold assets," he explains.

Political Influence and Hyper-Extraction

To enhance 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 last stage 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 capital management, 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 comprehend is these billionaire private-equity funds are what happens when so much wealth is parked in so few hands, and they can kind of turn around and say, 'Where else can we squeeze money out of the economy?' Healthcare? Great. Mobile home parks? These people can't go anywhere, [so] you can boost their expenses."

The Real Consequences

The consequences 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 hardship and discontent of this kind of society can lead to deep discontent.

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

Policy Situation

The paradox, Collins points out in his book, is that elected representatives have appointed a string of billionaires to cabinet positions. Along with wealthy entrepreneurs 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 congressional allies, helped pass huge tax bills, which will make lasting reductions for the wealthy and corporations.

Potential Changes

While political parties continue to argue that foreign entry and unfavorable commercial treaties 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 seriously confront the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Progressive politicians, he argues, know what policies are needed to "alter economic flow", including significant reforms to the tax system, boosting the minimum wage and empowering worker groups.

"It was so, so close, and the legislation really did embody the will of the majority of people who really want lawmakers to address some of these critical challenges," Collins said. "Elite control is not about creating so much as stopping. It's easier to block than it is to make something substantial take place, but the muscle memory 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 pendulum swings back, and then it really is about maintaining a ongoing grassroots effort to make progress on this severe disparity we're living in," he said. "We can fix this. It is addressable."