For residents of the poorest towns, it's a greater distance, economically and physically, to commute to a place that offers at least a little potential for advancement.

And it’s not as if the jobs are in those wealthy towns, either; in 21 of the 25 small wealthiest towns, more than 80 percent of the workers commute outside of their place of residence for work.

Scarsdale, New York, for example, which tops the list of wealthiest towns, is just a 30-minute train ride on the Metro-North Railroad to Grand Central Station in Manhattan.

Great Falls, Virginia, the second wealthiest town in the country, is approximately 40 minutes by car (well, not counting traffic) to Washington, D.C., where the wealthy and powerful of the nation congregate, and Winnetka, Illinois, the fourth wealthiest town, is really a suburb of Chicago, just 45 minutes away.

But in many of the poorest towns, residents don’t even have access to cars, trains or other forms of public transportation—and the commute to a place offering promising work is likely considerably more than an hour away.

Consider this: According to the report, the typical U.S. household brought home $53,889 in 2015, roughly $2,500 more than in 2009, when the typical household earned $51,425.

But although American incomes have come up quite a bit since the depths of the Great Recession, not everyone has benefited from the economic recovery, with many people left out altogether; that means that income inequality remains high throughout the country.

Education plays a major role in how successful a person—and his or her surrounding community—will be, with those having a bachelor’s degree earning about $23,000 more than those without a four-year college education and those with graduate degrees taking home nearly $40,000 more.

And it follows through into the town; in 23 of the 25 richest towns, more than 70 percent of adults have a bachelor’s degree. But in 20 out of the 25 poorest towns, fewer than 15 percent of adults have a college degree.

To rank the richest and poorest towns in America, 24/7 Wall Street used household income data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey for the five-year period between 2011 and 2015, excluding towns for which the margin of error at 90 percent confidence was greater than 10 percent of either the median household income or the population.

Unincorporated regions called census-designated places were also considered. Poverty rates, median home values, and the percentage of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree also came from the ACS and are also five-year estimates through 2015.

But it’s not just education that plays into a town’s relative prosperity or poverty; among the poorest towns, a substantial number have been economically suffering for years, with the loss of good manufacturing and mining jobs that provided not just stable wages that could support a family but also benefits that provided additional security.

The study points out that Benton Harbor, Michigan, used to be a major manufacturing center, with a population of more than 20,000 in the 1960s. Now, it’s the poorest town in the state, with its population cut in half from those days.

Many of the poorest towns were also hit with white flight, as wealthier, white residents headed to more affluent suburbs. By doing so, they shrank the city’s tax base and further weakened the area’s economy.

In East Cleveland, Ohio, for example, the first suburb of the city of Cleveland, the population dropped, thanks to people moving out of the area, from 40,000 in 1950 to just 17,500 as of 2015. Today, nonwhite residents make up more than 90 percent of the East Cleveland population. In 16 of the 25 poorest towns, minority groups comprise more than half of the population.

Here are the five richest, followed by the five poorest, towns in the U.S.

5 richest towns in America

5. Oyster Bay Cove, New York

Median household income: $210,288

Median home value: $1,506,300

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 72.4 percent

Poverty rate: 0.5 percent

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4. Winnetka, Illinois

Median household income: $211,773

Median home value: $957,600

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 87.9 percent

Poverty rate: 1.8 percent

3. Rolling Hills, California

Median household income: $216,458

Median home value: $2,000,000+

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 70.3 percent

Poverty rate: 2.0 percent

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2. Great Falls, Virginia

Median household income: $234,091

Median home value: $1,103,000

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 81.1 percent

Poverty rate: 1.9 percent

1. Scarsdale, New York

Median household income: $242,782

Median home value: $1,230,600

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 87.0 percent

Poverty rate: 2.3 percent

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5 poorest towns in America

5. Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin

Median household income: $20,160

Median home value: $112,900

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 17.0 percent

Poverty rate: 44.3 percent

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4. Muskegon Heights, Michigan

Median household income: $20,083

Median home value: $41,900

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 6.0 percent

Poverty rate: 45.2 percent

3. East Cleveland, Ohio

Median household income: $19,592

Median home value: $60,600

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 11.0 percent

Poverty rate: 42.6 percent

2. Benton Harbor, Michigan

Median household income: $18,085

Median home value: $47,800

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 5.1 percent

Poverty rate: 50.3 percent

1. Centreville, Illinois

Median household income: $16,553

Median home value: $49,600

Adults with at least a bachelor’s degree: 10.9 percent

Poverty rate: 47.8 percent