Self-employment method
Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers
30,315 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 30,315 people who filed under this code in 2022, 39.52% 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 = 30,315 · 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 | 7,492 | 24.8% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 4,487 | 14.8% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 5,924 | 19.6% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 3,791 | 12.5% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 3,144 | 10.4% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 2,892 | 9.6% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,319 | 4.4% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 748 | 2.5% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 451 | 1.5% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $17,963 put the typical filer somewhere between a serious side income and a failing attempt at a full-time one, and the receipts figure alone cannot tell you which.
30,315 people filed under this code, almost none of whom appear in any employment statistic. Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers 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 nondurable-goods wholesaling suits people who can move perishable or fast-turning stock on tight terms, where a slow week is written off rather than carried.
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
The top quarter of Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers earns 13.0x the bottom quarter — under $5,078 against over $65,776, a spread of $60,698. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers earns under $5,078 — $44,942 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 cold chain and turn discipline; in this category slow stock is not stock, it is loss.
39.5% of the 30,315 people who filed in 2022 grossed under $10,000 for the year — 11,980 people. Approaching half of everyone who tried Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers took in less revenue than a part-time wage, before costs.
That share is a floor, not an estimate: $10,000 is revenue, not earnings. Everyone counted inside it kept less than $10,000, and an unknown number of the filers above it also finished the year with nothing after costs.
What the spread tells you
At 13.0x, the gap between $5,078 and $65,776 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $17,963 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
In cash terms the middle half of Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers runs $5,078 to $65,776 — $60,698 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $17,963.
The 75th percentile is $65,776. Reaching it from the $17,963 midpoint is $47,813 a year; reaching it from the $5,078 that the bottom quarter of Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers earn is $60,698.
The top quarter of Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers begins $47,813 above the $17,963 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $12,885 below it. A range stretched that far in one direction is the signature of a field where a small group earns a great deal more than the middle does.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers takes $8.63 in revenue — $2.44 at the bottom quarter and $31.62 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Counted straight off the return: 7,492 filers grossed under $5,000, 4,487 took $5,000 to $9,999, 5,924 took $10,000 to $24,999, 5,410 cleared $100,000 and 2,518 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $17,963 is turnover — the money that passed through Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $17,963 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else