Self-employment method
Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance
198,257 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 198,257 people who filed under this code in 2022, 30.00% 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 = 198,257 · 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 | 35,088 | 17.7% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 24,397 | 12.3% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 46,588 | 23.5% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 33,942 | 17.1% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 25,742 | 13.0% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 22,560 | 11.4% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 7,680 | 3.9% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 1,891 | 1.0% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 369 | 0.2% |
Who this suits
At a $22,764 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.
With 198,257 filers, Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance is a substantial informal workforce. Enough people do it that local pricing is set by the field rather than by you.
16.4% 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 Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance earns 8.4x the bottom quarter — under $7,967 against over $66,855, a spread of $58,888. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance earns under $7,967 — $42,053 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.
Of 198,257 filers in 2022, 30.0% took under $10,000 across the whole year in gross receipts: 59,477 people. Whatever the working version of Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance 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 8.4x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $22,764 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance should plan around it.
In cash terms the middle half of Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance runs $7,967 to $66,855 — $58,888 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $22,764.
Getting to $66,855, the 75th percentile, is worth $44,091 a year more than the $22,764 midpoint and $58,888 more than the $7,967 a quarter of Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance settle for.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $10.94 at the midpoint for Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance, $3.83 at the 25th percentile and $32.14 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
Counted straight off the return: 35,088 filers grossed under $5,000, 24,397 took $5,000 to $9,999, 46,588 took $10,000 to $24,999, 32,500 cleared $100,000 and 9,940 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 $22,764 midpoint for Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $22,764 salary.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance, the hourly figure is $22,764 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · Look up something else