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Among countless US citizens, the economic climate over the recent five-year span has been difficult. Expenses have escalated while wages remains flat. Steep mortgage rates have made buying a home a grim prospect. The rate of unemployment has been slowly rising.

The majority of individuals have reported they're delaying major life decisions, including having kids or switching jobs, because of financial volatility. But for a select few of people, the recent half-decade couldn't have been any better.

The Billionaire Boom

The wealth of the world's billionaires increased 54% in 2020, at the climax of the pandemic. And even amid all the economic instability, the stock market has only persisted in expanding. This expansion has mostly helped just a tiny percentage of Americans: 10% of the population owns 93% of stock market wealth.

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

"Affluent individuals have purchased their jets, they've purchased their multiple houses and mansions, but now they're acquiring senators and media outlets," stated wealth disparity expert Chuck Collins. "We're now moving into this other chapter of hyper-extraction where the wealthy are preying on the system of inequality."

Mapping Economic Classes

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

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

• At the foundation, 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 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.

In total, the residents of these villages comprise 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 sitting 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 interest in the commercial aviation system. You don't care if the whole system fails – you're set."

The Billionaireville Effect

The highest hill 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 far surpasses those who are simply wealthy, let alone the typical citizen who doesn't reside in "Richistan" at all.

But Collins thinks the progressive slogan "billionaires shouldn't exist" misses the point and has a "suggestion of eradication" to it.

"It's the separation between individual behaviors and a framework of policies," Collins said. "We should be worried about an economic system that channels so much wealth upward to the billionaires."

The Four Pillars of Billionaire Wealth

To understand how wealth at the billionaire level works, Collins separates it into four parts: accumulating assets, securing fortune, political capture and hyper-extraction.

When many Americans think about wealth, they usually think only 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 membership in Affluent Town.

But getting to Billionaireville requires significant resources and planning in those next three steps. Collins describes what he calls the "asset protection sector": the tax lawyers, accountants and wealth managers who use their expertise to ensure that the super rich are being deliberate about their taxes.

"Wealth defense professionals use a broad range of tools such as trusts, offshore bank accounts, undisclosed businesses, non-profit organizations and other methods to hold assets," he writes.

Political Influence and Hyper-Extraction

To further a wealth defense strategy, a family needs political support. Wealth of over $40m converts to political power, Collins says, and can be used to secure fortune and maintain expansion.

The ultimate step is a different kind of wealth accumulation, one that Collins calls "hyper extraction" 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 looking for those sectors 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 stored in so few hands, and they can kind of turn around 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 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 serious unrest.

"The most powerful oligarchs understand people are being marginalized [and] are monetarily hurting," Collins said, adding that conservative politicians have been good at connecting with a potent "false common-man appeal".

Government Truth

The contradiction, Collins points out in his book, is that government officials have appointed a string of billionaires to administrative posts. Along with wealthy entrepreneurs who had brief but powerful roles overseeing massive cuts to the federal workforce, other crucial appointments for commerce, treasury, education and the interior are also all billionaires.

This government structure, along with help from congressional allies, helped pass major tax legislation, which will make permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

The Path Forward

While government groups continue to argue that foreign entry and poor economic deals are the source of everyone's economic problems, "the issue remains: Will the other major party, which has also been captured 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 "change wealth distribution", including deep changes to the tax system, boosting the minimum wage and empowering worker groups.

"It was so, so close, and the law really did embody the will of the bulk of people who really want lawmakers to solve some of these critical challenges," Collins said. "Wealthy influence is not about developing 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 ongoing legislative effort.

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