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Among countless individuals in the United States, the economy over the past five years has been difficult. Prices have soared while salaries remains unchanged. Steep mortgage rates have made homeownership a grim prospect. The jobless rate has been slowly rising.

Most people have indicated they're putting off major life decisions, including having kids or moving to new employment, because of the instability. But for a very small group of people, the past five-year period couldn't have been any better.

Wealth Explosion

The assets of the world's billionaires expanded 54% in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. And even throughout all the economic instability, the stock market has only continued to grow. This growth has mostly helped just a limited group 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 existing today.

"Rich elites have acquired their jets, they've purchased their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're securing senators and media outlets," explained wealth disparity expert Chuck Collins. "We're now entering this other chapter of maximum resource removal where the wealthy are preying on 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, imagined the different levels of wealth as "Affluencia" villages: Prosperity Village, Lower Richistan, Middle Richistan, Upper Richistan and Billionaireville.

To update the concept, Collins classifies these "affluence districts" based on income levels:

• At the lowest tier, Affluent Town, are the 10 million Americans who have a family earnings 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.

Altogether, the residents of these villages make up 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 said. "Whereas in Upper Richistan, you're traveling via a private jet. That's a really different cultural experience. You fly private, you have no stakes in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system fails – you're set."

Extreme Affluence Consequences

The peak 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 substantially outweighs those who are simply wealthy, let alone the ordinary person 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 "suggestion of eradication" to it.

"It's the separation between private conduct and a structure of regulations," Collins explained. "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 divides it into four parts: getting the wealth, defending the wealth, policy control 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 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 "fortune security field": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their knowledge to ensure that the super rich are being calculated about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a extensive selection of tools such as financial instruments, international accounts, secret corporations, non-profit organizations and other methods to hold assets," he details.

Government Power and Extreme Wealth Removal

To enhance a wealth defense strategy, a family needs political support. Wealth of over $40m translates to political power, Collins says, and can be used to protect assets and maintain expansion.

The last stage is a different kind of wealth accumulation, one that Collins calls "hyper extraction" to describe how the wealthy have come to touch nearly every single part of an Americans' routine activities largely through private equity, which allows wealthy individuals to invest in private companies.

"Private equity is looking 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 squeeze money out of the economy?' Healthcare? Great. Mobile home parks? These people can't go anywhere, [so] you can increase their costs."

Tangible Effects

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

"The most powerful affluent rulers understand people are being marginalized [and] are economically suffering," Collins said, adding that conservative politicians have been good at tapping into a potent "fake grassroots movement".

Government Truth

The paradox, Collins points out in his book, is that political leaders have appointed a string of billionaires to administrative posts. Along with tech billionaires who had temporary but significant roles overseeing significant decreases to the federal workforce, other key positions for commerce, treasury, education and the interior are also all billionaires.

This political landscape, along with help from political partners, helped pass major tax legislation, which will make permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

The Path Forward

While legislative bodies continue to argue that border policies 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.

Left-leaning officials, 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 supporting labor organizations.

"It was so, so close, and the legislation really did represent the will of the most of people who really want lawmakers to address some of these pressing issues," 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 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 quickly that the pendulum swings back, and then it really is about maintaining a sustained really popular movement to make progress on this profound imbalance we're living in," he said. "We can fix this. It is fixable."