“They are enjoying a boom that camouflages what’s going on at the bottom,” Mr. Lettieri said.

Communities between these two extremes have managed only to tread water in recent years, the study found. Employment in communities in the median ZIP codes increased only slightly and the number of businesses did not grow at all.

Officially, the economy has grown every year since 2010, at an average annual rate of expansion of just over 2 percent. But don’t bother telling that to many Americans: A Fox News poll last year showed that 64 percent of people still thought the economy was in a recession, echoing an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey in 2014 that found much the same thing.

Many experts have attributed this disconnect to stagnant wage growth for most workers, and a lower level of employment among prime-age Americans in recent years, especially for those who don’t have a college degree.

The new study suggests other factors are at work as well. In distressed areas, economic conditions continue to resemble those seen during a recession.

“ZIP codes mere miles apart occupy vastly different planes of community well-being — and few people are truly mobile between them,” the study concludes. “It is little surprise that many Americans feel they have been truly left behind.”

At the same time, the authors say, once a downward spiral begins, it is very difficult for residents or local political leaders to reverse the slide. “When businesses close and there is no investment, the tax base erodes,” Mr. Lettieri said. “Local governments can’t invest their way out.”