Self-employment method
Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair
66,046 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 66,046 people who filed under this code in 2022, 23.01% 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 = 66,046 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full receipts distribution as Census publishes it. The median above is interpolated inside whichever band contains the 50th percentile, so this table is what that figure is derived from.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 8,238 | 12.5% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 6,962 | 10.5% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 14,221 | 21.5% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 12,317 | 18.6% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 10,742 | 16.3% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 9,366 | 14.2% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 3,017 | 4.6% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 946 | 1.4% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 237 | 0.4% |
Who this suits
At a $32,311 median in gross receipts, the typical person under this code is running a real but part-time operation. Full-time equivalence would require roughly triple this before costs.
66,046 people filed under this code, almost none of whom appear in any employment statistic. Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair is part of the economy salary surveys simply do not see.
20.5% 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.
Personal and repair services are the most common form of American self-employment: a chair, a van or a set of tools, one person, and a book of local clients built by referral.
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 Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair earns 7.6x the bottom quarter — under $11,383 against over $86,290, a spread of $74,907. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair earns under $11,383 — $38,637 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 client book already forming. Rent on a chair or a unit begins immediately; the referrals do not.
23.0% of the 66,046 Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair filings in 2022 reported under $10,000 in gross receipts for the year — 15,197 people who took in less than a part-time wage before costs.
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 7.6x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $32,311 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair should plan around it.
In cash terms the middle half of Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair runs $11,383 to $86,290 — $74,907 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $32,311.
Getting to $86,290, the 75th percentile, is worth $53,979 a year more than the $32,311 midpoint and $74,907 more than the $11,383 a quarter of Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair settle for.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $15.53 at the midpoint for Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair, $5.47 at the 25th percentile and $41.48 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
Counted straight off the return: 8,238 filers grossed under $5,000, 6,962 took $5,000 to $9,999, 14,221 took $10,000 to $24,999, 13,566 cleared $100,000 and 4,200 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Every figure above is GROSS RECEIPTS, before expenses — money that arrived before rent, materials, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax. The $32,311 midpoint for Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $32,311 salary.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Automotive Body, Paint, Interior, and Glass Repair, the hourly figure is $32,311 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · Look up something else