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To numerous Americans, the financial landscape over the recent five-year span has been difficult. Costs have skyrocketed while salaries remains flat. Elevated mortgage rates have made buying a home a dismal prospect. The rate of unemployment has been gradually increasing.

Most people have reported they're delaying major life decisions, including raising children or moving to new employment, because of the instability. But for a select few of people, the last five years couldn't have been more successful.

Fortune Expansion

The fortune of the world's billionaires grew 54% in 2020, at the peak of the pandemic. And even during all the financial uncertainty, the stock market has only persisted in expanding. This increase has largely benefited just a tiny percentage of Americans: 10% of the population owns 93% of stock market wealth.

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

"The wealthy have purchased their jets, they've acquired their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're securing senators and media outlets," stated wealth disparity expert Chuck Collins. "We're now stepping into this other chapter of hyper-extraction where the wealthy are taking advantage of the system of inequality."

Understanding Wealth Tiers

To help others grasp what exactly it means to be "affluent" in the US, Collins adopts a concept from journalist Robert Frank who, in a 2007 book on the rich, conceptualized the different levels of wealth as "Wealthville" villages: Prosperity Village, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To modernize the concept, Collins categorizes these "wealth villages" based on income levels:

• At the lowest tier, 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 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.

Collectively, 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 flying 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 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."

The Billionaireville Effect

The summit in "Richistan" is Billionaireville, which is made up of about 800 American billionaires who are some of the world's wealthiest. The control that this group has substantially outweighs those who are simply wealthy, let alone the typical citizen who doesn't inhabit "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the activist mantra "billionaires shouldn't exist" doesn't capture the real problem and has a "whiff of exterminism" to it.

"It's the distinction between personal actions and a system of rules," Collins commented. "We should be focused on 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, 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 reasonable quantity of wealth through starting or running a successful business, which could get them residency in Affluent Town.

But getting to Billionaireville requires significant resources and tactics 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 wide variety of tools such as legal entities, foreign deposits, undisclosed businesses, philanthropic entities and other methods to hold assets," he explains.

Government Power and Extreme Wealth Removal

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

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' routine activities largely through investment firms, which allows wealthy individuals to fund private companies.

"Private equity is searching for those corners of the economy where they can squeeze things a little bit harder," Collins said. "One thing I don't think people understand is these billionaire private-equity funds are what happens when so much wealth is accumulated in so few hands, and they can essentially pivot 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 boost their expenses."

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 pain and frustration of this kind of society can lead to profound dissatisfaction.

"The most powerful wealthy elites understand people are being marginalized [and] are economically suffering," Collins said, adding that right-leaning leaders have been good at tapping into a potent "false common-man appeal".

Policy Situation

The irony, Collins points out in his book, is that elected representatives have appointed a succession of billionaires to administrative posts. Along with affluent innovators who had temporary but significant roles overseeing substantial reductions to the federal workforce, other important roles for commerce, treasury, education and the interior are also all billionaires.

This government structure, along with help from congressional allies, helped pass significant fiscal policies, which will make lasting reductions for the wealthy and corporations.

The Path Forward

While legislative bodies continue to argue that foreign entry and bad trade agreements are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the question becomes: Will the opposing party, which has also been captured by the billionaires and big money, be able to meaningfully address the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Liberal leaders, he argues, know what policies are needed to "change wealth distribution", including deep changes to the tax system, increasing the minimum wage and strengthening unions.

"It was so, so close, and the legislation really did represent the will of the bulk of people who really want lawmakers to address some of these urgent problems," Collins said. "Wealthy influence 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 optimistic that there can be change, but said it would require ongoing legislative effort.

"It may be quickly that the tide turns, and then it really is about sustaining a ongoing grassroots effort to make progress on this profound imbalance we're living in," he said. "We can solve this. It is solvable."