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To numerous US citizens, the financial landscape over the past five years has been challenging. Prices have skyrocketed while salaries remains stagnant. Elevated mortgage rates have made buying a home a bleak prospect. The unemployment rate has been slowly rising.

Many Americans have stated they're delaying major life decisions, including raising children or switching jobs, because of financial volatility. But for a tiny fraction of people, the past five-year period couldn't have been any better.

Fortune Expansion

The fortune of the world's billionaires expanded 54% in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. And even during all the market volatility, the stock market has only continued to grow. This expansion has primarily advantaged just a limited group of Americans: 10% of the population owns 93% of stock market wealth.

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

"Affluent individuals have purchased their jets, they've purchased their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're securing senators and media outlets," commented economic inequality analyst Chuck Collins. "We're now stepping into this other chapter of extreme wealth extraction where the wealthy are exploiting the system of inequality."

Mapping Economic Classes

To help others comprehend 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, envisioned the different levels of wealth as "Wealthville" villages: Wealth Borough, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To modernize the concept, Collins categorizes 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 net worth 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 lifestyles vary dramatically.

"You could be in Lower Richistan, and you're still flying in the coach section of a commercial plane," Collins noted. "Whereas in Upper Richistan, you're flying in a private jet. That's a really distinct lifestyle. You fly private, you have no investment in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system fails – 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 wealthiest. The influence 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 "hint of elimination" to it.

"It's the separation between personal actions and a framework of policies," Collins explained. "We should be focused on an economic system that channels 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, securing fortune, policy control 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 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 "fortune security field": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their expertise to ensure that the super rich are being strategic about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a extensive selection of tools such as trusts, offshore bank accounts, secret corporations, non-profit organizations and other vehicles to hold assets," he writes.

Political Influence and Hyper-Extraction

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 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 influence nearly every single part of an Americans' routine activities largely through capital management, which allows wealthy individuals to fund private companies.

"Private equity is searching for those corners of the economy where they can extract value 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 generate returns out of the economy?' Healthcare? Great. Mobile home parks? These people can't go anywhere, [so] you can increase their costs."

Tangible Effects

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

"The most powerful affluent rulers understand people are being left behind [and] are economically suffering," Collins said, adding that right-leaning leaders have been good at connecting with a potent "false common-man appeal".

Political Reality

The irony, Collins points out in his book, is that political leaders have appointed a string of billionaires to government roles. Along with tech billionaires who had short yet influential roles overseeing substantial reductions 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 significant fiscal policies, which will make permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

Future Solutions

While government groups 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 effectively tackle the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Liberal leaders, he argues, know what policies are needed to "change wealth distribution", including significant reforms to the tax system, increasing the minimum wage and empowering worker groups.

"It was so, so close, and the law 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 creating 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 hopeful that there can be change, but said it would require continuous government action.

"It may be quickly that the pendulum swings back, and then it really is about maintaining a sustained really popular movement to make progress on this extreme inequality we're living in," he said. "We can address this. It is addressable."