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Among countless Americans, the financial landscape over the last half-decade has been tough. Expenses have skyrocketed while salaries remains unchanged. High mortgage rates have made buying a home a bleak prospect. The jobless rate has been creeping up.

Many Americans have stated they're postponing major life decisions, including starting a family or switching jobs, because of economic uncertainty. 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 amid all the financial uncertainty, the stock market has only continued to grow. This expansion has largely benefited just a tiny percentage of Americans: 10% of the population holds 93% of stock market wealth.

As uneven as this allocation seems, it's the financial structure working as it is existing today.

"The wealthy have bought their jets, they've acquired their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're buying senators and media outlets," explained economic inequality analyst Chuck Collins. "We're now moving into this other chapter of hyper-extraction where the wealthy are exploiting the system of inequality."

Mapping Economic Classes

To help others understand what exactly it means to be "affluent" 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: Wealth Borough, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To contemporize the concept, Collins organizes these "affluence districts" based on income levels:

• At the foundation, Affluent Town, are the 10 million Americans who have a household income of at least $110,000 and an net worth 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 make up 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 traveling via 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."

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 richest. The influence that this group has greatly exceeds those who are simply affluent, let alone the ordinary person who doesn't reside in "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the political catchphrase "abolish billionaires" fails to address the core issue and has a "suggestion of eradication" to it.

"It's the separation between private conduct and a framework of policies," Collins explained. "We should be concerned about an economic system that channels so much wealth upward to the billionaires."

Fortune Building Strategies

To understand how wealth at the billionaire level works, Collins separates it into four parts: getting the wealth, defending the wealth, government influence and extreme wealth removal.

When many Americans think about wealth, they usually think solely about the first step, Collins said. People can create a limited sum of wealth through creating or operating a successful business, which could get them residency in Affluent Town.

But getting to Billionaireville requires significant resources and strategy in those next three steps. Collins describes what he calls the "wealth defense industry": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their knowledge to ensure that the super rich are being strategic about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a broad range of tools such as trusts, offshore bank accounts, anonymous shell companies, charitable foundations and other methods to hold assets," he writes.

Political Influence and Hyper-Extraction

To advance a wealth defense strategy, a family needs political support. 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 "extreme removal" to describe how the wealthy have come to affect nearly every single part of an Americans' everyday life largely through capital management, which allows wealthy individuals to fund private companies.

"Private equity is seeking those sectors 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 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 increase their costs."

Actual Impacts

The effects of this inequality go beyond the wealth getting wealthier. It's about people spending additional funds 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 serious unrest.

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

Political Reality

The contradiction, Collins points out in his book, is that political leaders have appointed a succession of billionaires to cabinet positions. Along with wealthy entrepreneurs 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 government structure, along with help from political partners, helped pass huge tax bills, which will make lasting reductions for the wealthy and corporations.

The Path Forward

While government groups continue to argue that foreign entry and unfavorable commercial treaties are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the challenge is: Will the opposing party, which has also been controlled by the billionaires and big money, be able to effectively tackle 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, raising the minimum wage and strengthening unions.

"It was so, so close, and the bill really did reflect the will of the majority of people who really want lawmakers to solve some of these critical challenges," Collins said. "Elite control is not about developing so much as preventing. It's easier to block than it is to make something substantial take place, but the institutional knowledge 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 before we know it that the tide turns, and then it really is about preserving a continuous public campaign to make progress on this profound imbalance we're living in," he said. "We can address this. It is fixable."