Self-employment method
Art Dealers
17,173 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 17,173 people who filed under this code in 2022, 45.16% 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 = 17,173 · 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 | 5,131 | 30.0% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 2,625 | 15.4% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 3,292 | 19.3% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 2,007 | 11.7% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 1,645 | 9.6% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 1,455 | 8.5% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 540 | 3.2% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 268 | 1.6% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 136 | 0.8% |
Who this suits
At the midpoint this work grossed $13,616 for the year — $1,134 a month in revenue. That is a real second income and a long way short of a first one, and Census cannot tell you which of those the typical filer intended.
17,173 people filed under this code — enough that the work exists everywhere and not enough that it supports a visible trade. Most people doing Art Dealers are doing it alongside something else.
14.0% 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 hobby, book, sporting and miscellaneous retail suits people selling into an enthusiasm they genuinely share, because knowledge is most of the differentiation left.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 17,173 people did. Free entry is why the lower bands are as full as they are: the distribution below counts everyone who tried, not everyone who was ready.
Who should not do this
The top quarter of Art Dealers earns 11.3x the bottom quarter — under $4,166 against over $47,126, a spread of $42,960. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Art Dealers earns under $4,166 — $45,854 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 plan for online competition, because your customers are pricing against it whether you are or not.
45.2% of 17,173 filers in 2022 took under $10,000 across the entire year: 7,755 people. Close to half of everyone in Art Dealers is in that band, and gross receipts is the generous way of counting it.
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 11.3x, the gap between $4,166 and $47,126 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $13,616 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 Art Dealers runs $4,166 to $47,126 — $42,960 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $13,616.
Getting to $47,126, the 75th percentile, is worth $33,510 a year more than the $13,616 midpoint and $42,960 more than the $4,166 a quarter of Art Dealers settle for.
The top quarter of Art Dealers begins $33,510 above the $13,616 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $9,450 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 Art Dealers takes $6.54 in revenue — $2.00 at the bottom quarter and $22.65 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Straight from the Census bands for Art Dealers: 5,131 filers under $5,000, 2,625 between $5,000 and $9,999, 3,292 between $10,000 and $24,999, 2,399 above $100,000 and 944 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $13,616 is turnover — the money that passed through Art Dealers 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 $13,616 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Art Dealers, 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