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To numerous individuals in the United States, the economy over the recent five-year span has been challenging. Costs have soared while salaries remains stagnant. Steep mortgage rates have made purchasing property a dismal prospect. The jobless rate has been creeping up.

Most people have reported they're postponing major life decisions, including having kids or moving to new employment, because of economic uncertainty. But for a select few of people, the recent half-decade couldn't have been any better.

The Billionaire Boom

The assets of the world's billionaires grew 54% in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. And even during all the financial uncertainty, the stock market has only persisted in expanding. This growth has mostly helped just a limited group of Americans: 10% of the population controls 93% of stock market wealth.

As uneven as this division seems, it's the economic framework working as it is existing today.

"The wealthy have acquired their jets, they've bought 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 extreme wealth extraction where the wealthy are taking advantage of the system of inequality."

Understanding Wealth Tiers

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

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

• At the base level, 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 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.

Collectively, the residents of these villages constitute 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 sitting in the coach section of a commercial plane," Collins said. "Whereas in Upper Richistan, you're traveling via 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."

Ultra-Wealth Impact

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 influence that this group has far surpasses those who are simply well-off, let alone the average American who doesn't live in "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the progressive slogan "end extreme wealth" fails to address the core issue and has a "suggestion of eradication" to it.

"It's the separation between private conduct and a structure of regulations," Collins explained. "We should be focused on an economic system that directs 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: acquiring fortune, defending the wealth, policy control and extreme wealth removal.

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

But getting to Billionaireville requires substantial commitment 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 calculated about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a extensive selection of tools such as trusts, international accounts, anonymous shell companies, philanthropic entities and other methods to hold assets," he details.

Political Influence and Hyper-Extraction

To further 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 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 influence nearly every single part of an Americans' routine activities largely through investment firms, which allows wealthy individuals to invest in 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 comprehend is these billionaire private-equity funds are what happens when so much wealth is parked in so few hands, and they can kind of turn around 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."

The Real Consequences

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 substantial income improvement. And Collins said the suffering and anger of this kind of society can lead to profound dissatisfaction.

"The most powerful oligarchs understand people are being left behind [and] are financially struggling," Collins said, adding that Republicans have been good at accessing a potent "phony populism".

Government Truth

The irony, Collins points out in his book, is that government officials have appointed a succession of billionaires to government roles. Along with affluent innovators who had short yet influential roles overseeing significant decreases 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 significant fiscal policies, which will make lasting reductions for the wealthy and corporations.

Future Solutions

While political parties 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 seriously confront the underlying harms?" Collins said.

Liberal leaders, he argues, know what policies are needed to "reverse the updraft of wealth", including significant reforms to the tax system, increasing the minimum wage and strengthening unions.

"It was so, so close, and the law really did reflect the will of the majority of people who really want lawmakers to solve some of these critical challenges," Collins said. "Wealthy influence is not about creating so much as blocking. It's easier to block than it is to make something meaningful happen, but the muscle memory is there. We know what that looks like."

Collins is hopeful that there can be change, but said it would require sustained political momentum.

"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 address this. It is solvable."