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Among countless individuals in the United States, the financial landscape over the recent five-year span has been difficult. Prices have skyrocketed while pay remains flat. High mortgage rates have made purchasing property a bleak prospect. The unemployment rate has been gradually increasing.

The majority of individuals have indicated they're delaying major life decisions, including starting a family or moving to new employment, because of financial volatility. But for a tiny fraction of people, the last five years couldn't have been more successful.

Fortune Expansion

The wealth of the world's billionaires expanded 54% in 2020, at the peak of the pandemic. And even during all the economic instability, the stock market has only persisted in expanding. This expansion has primarily advantaged just a small number of Americans: 10% of the population controls 93% of stock market wealth.

However unequal as this allocation seems, it's the economic framework working as it is currently designed.

"Affluent individuals have bought 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 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, imagined the different levels of wealth as "Affluencia" villages: Wealth Borough, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To contemporize the concept, Collins categorizes 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 total assets 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.

In total, the residents of these villages comprise 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 said. "Whereas in Upper Richistan, you're using 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."

The Billionaireville Effect

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

But Collins thinks the activist mantra "end extreme wealth" misses the point and has a "hint of elimination" to it.

"It's the difference between private conduct and a structure of regulations," Collins commented. "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 breaks it down into four parts: accumulating assets, defending the wealth, government influence and maximum resource extraction.

When many Americans think about wealth, they usually think solely about the first step, Collins said. People can create a modest amount 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 tactics in those next three steps. Collins describes what he calls the "wealth defense industry": 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, charitable foundations and other mechanisms to hold assets," he writes.

Government Power and Extreme Wealth Removal

To advance a wealth defense strategy, a family needs government backing. Wealth of over $40m translates 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 "maximum taking" to describe how the wealthy have come to influence nearly every single part of an Americans' everyday life largely through capital management, which allows wealthy individuals to fund private companies.

"Private equity is looking for those corners of the economy where they can squeeze things 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 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 raise their rents."

Actual Impacts

The effects 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 substantial income improvement. And Collins said the pain and frustration of this kind of society can lead to profound dissatisfaction.

"The most powerful oligarchs understand people are being marginalized [and] are economically suffering," Collins said, adding that right-leaning leaders have been good at accessing a potent "fake grassroots movement".

Government Truth

The irony, Collins points out in his book, is that political leaders have appointed a succession of billionaires to government roles. Along with affluent innovators 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 administrative framework, along with help from legislative supporters, helped pass major tax legislation, which will make enduring decreases for the wealthy and corporations.

Potential Changes

While government groups continue to argue that border policies and poor economic deals are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the challenge is: Will the opposing party, which has also been influenced by the billionaires and big money, be able to seriously confront the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Left-leaning officials, he argues, know what policies are needed to "alter economic flow", including substantial modifications to the tax system, increasing the minimum wage and strengthening unions.

"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. "Oligarchic power is not about developing so much as preventing. 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 positive that there can be change, but said it would require continuous government action.

"It may be before we know it that the pendulum swings back, and then it really is about sustaining a continuous public campaign to make progress on this profound imbalance we're living in," he said. "We can fix this. It is fixable."