Self-employment method
Activities related to credit intermediation
20,697 people filed as a nonemployer business under this industry code in 2022 — no payroll, no employees, just them. These are gross receipts reported to the IRS, before any expense is taken out.
Median GROSS RECEIPTS for the year — money in, before rent, materials, fuel, insurance or tax. This is not take-home pay.
Share who grossed under $10,000 for the whole year — before expenses.
The middle half, in gross receipts. A quarter of filers took less than the lower figure.
Source: US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
How often it does not work out
Of the 20,697 people who filed under this code in 2022, 30.69% grossed under $10,000 for the entire year — before a single expense was deducted.
That is a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes GROSS RECEIPTS, not net income. Everyone inside that share earned less than the figure suggests once rent, materials, mileage, insurance and self-employment tax came out — and filers who grossed well above the threshold may still have netted nothing. The true share of people who earn nothing meaningful from this is higher than the number above, never lower.
Denominator: establishments_total = 20,697 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full distribution Census publishes. The median above is interpolated inside the band that holds the 50th percentile.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 3,516 | 17.0% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 2,836 | 13.7% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 4,522 | 21.8% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 3,352 | 16.2% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 2,775 | 13.4% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 2,266 | 10.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 803 | 3.9% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 396 | 1.9% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 230 | 1.1% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $23,255, or $1,937 a month before expenses. That is an operating business at part-time scale: enough revenue to be worth running properly, not enough to be the only thing in the household.
20,697 people filed under this code, almost none of whom appear in any employment statistic. Activities related to credit intermediation is part of the economy salary surveys simply do not see.
17.9% of filers grossed $100,000 or more, which is high for this dataset. A substantial share of this field is running an actual business rather than an occasional one.
Independent credit intermediation work is licensed and commission-weighted, and suits people who can survive a long unpaid ramp before the first closing.
There is no training requirement to file under this code — which is precisely why so many people appear in the bottom bands. Entry being free is not the same as the work being viable.
Who should not do this
Bottom quarter under $7,923, top quarter over $73,351: 9.3x, or $5,452 a month. At this stretch the label has stopped describing one occupation, and every summary statistic about it — including the midpoint — should be treated with suspicion.
The bottom quarter of Activities related to credit intermediation earns under $7,923 — $42,097 below the $50,020 a typical American job pays. Entering at the bottom and waiting is a live risk here, not a theoretical one, and some people never leave that quarter.
Do not start this without a year of expenses banked. The licensing period alone outlasts most people’s savings.
Of 20,697 filers in 2022, 30.7% took under $10,000 across the whole year in gross receipts: 6,351 people. Whatever the working version of Activities related to credit intermediation looks like, a third or more never reach it.
Read that as a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes gross receipts, not net income, so everyone inside that share earned less than $10,000 suggests once costs came out — and filers who grossed well above $10,000 may still have netted nothing.
What the spread tells you
A ratio of 9.3x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $23,255 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Activities related to credit intermediation should plan around it.
The middle half of this field earns between $7,923 and $73,351. That is $65,428 of range, with $23,255 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $7,923 and $73,351 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $23,255. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $50,096; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $65,428.
$15,332 below the midpoint, $50,096 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Activities related to credit intermediation that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Spread across a 2,080-hour year those receipts come to $11.18 an hour at the midpoint, $3.80 at the 25th percentile and $35.26 at the 75th. That is turnover per hour, not pay per hour, and it is not comparable with the $24.04 an hour a typical American job pays.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 3,516 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 2,836. $10,000 to $24,999, 4,522. Over $100,000, 3,695 — and 1,429 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $23,255 is turnover — the money that passed through Activities related to credit intermediation before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
The hourly number on this page is $23,255 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Activities related to credit intermediation, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else