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Among countless Americans, the economic climate over the last half-decade has been tough. Costs have escalated while pay remains unchanged. Steep mortgage rates have made buying a home a bleak prospect. The rate of unemployment has been gradually increasing.

Most people have indicated they're putting off major life decisions, including having kids or switching jobs, because of financial volatility. 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 climax of the pandemic. And even during all the financial uncertainty, the stock market has only persisted in expanding. This expansion has mostly helped just a small number of Americans: 10% of the population controls 93% of stock market wealth.

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

"Rich elites have acquired their jets, they've purchased their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're securing senators and media outlets," explained inequality researcher 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 comprehend what exactly it means to be "wealthy" in the US, Collins borrows a concept from journalist Robert Frank who, in a 2007 book on the rich, imagined the different levels of wealth as "Richistan" villages: Affluent Town, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To modernize the concept, Collins organizes these "economic communities" 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 overall wealth 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.

Altogether, the residents of these villages constitute 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 separate reality. You fly private, you have no interest in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system shuts down – you're set."

Extreme Affluence Consequences

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 power that this group has greatly exceeds those who are simply affluent, let alone the typical citizen who doesn't inhabit "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the political catchphrase "abolish billionaires" misses the point and has a "suggestion of eradication" to it.

"It's the separation between private conduct and a system of rules," Collins said. "We should be focused on 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 breaks it down into four parts: acquiring fortune, defending the wealth, government influence and extreme wealth removal.

When many Americans think about wealth, they usually think exclusively about the first step, Collins said. People can create a limited sum of wealth through establishing or managing a successful business, which could get them membership 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 deliberate about their taxes.

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

Government Power and Extreme Wealth Removal

To advance a wealth defense strategy, a family needs policy assistance. Wealth of over $40m becomes political power, Collins says, and can be used to secure fortune and protect its accumulation.

The ultimate step 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' everyday life largely through investment firms, which allows wealthy individuals to invest in private companies.

"Private equity is searching for those areas 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 stored 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 boost their expenses."

Actual Impacts

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 significant salary growth. And Collins said the suffering and anger of this kind of society can lead to deep discontent.

"The most powerful affluent rulers understand people are being excluded [and] are financially struggling," Collins said, adding that conservative politicians have been good at tapping into a potent "false common-man appeal".

Government Truth

The contradiction, Collins points out in his book, is that elected representatives have appointed a series of billionaires to cabinet positions. Along with tech billionaires who had brief but powerful roles overseeing substantial reductions to the federal workforce, other important roles 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 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 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 "change wealth distribution", including significant reforms to the tax system, boosting the minimum wage and strengthening unions.

"It was so, so close, and the legislation really did reflect the will of the most of people who really want lawmakers to address some of these critical challenges," Collins said. "Wealthy influence is not about developing 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 optimistic that there can be change, but said it would require ongoing legislative effort.

"It may be quickly that the balance shifts, and then it really is about preserving a sustained really popular movement to make progress on this profound imbalance we're living in," he said. "We can fix this. It is fixable."