Your address is becoming more of a factor on how well off you are — including the size of your paycheck and how much education you've obtained.
The widening gap in economic inequality between the top 1 percent of income-earners and everyone else was a hot-button issue in last year's presidential election, and the disparity appears to apply within smaller communities as well — a troubling trend as Americans are less able now than at any point in modern history to uproot their lives and relocate to greener pastures, according to the 2017 Distressed Communities Index by the Economic Innovation Group.
Axios published the report along with a nifty tool for breaking down prosperity right to individual ZIP codes. About 52 million people live in economically "distressed" ZIP codes.
In Pennsylvania, 26.7 percent of residents live in prosperous ZIP codes, and 13.5 percent live in economically distressed ZIP codes. Residents of prosperous zip codes enjoy incomes that are on average approaching 150 percent the statewide median, according to the study.