Self-employment method
Beauty Salons
823,967 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 823,967 people who filed under this code in 2022, 25.95% 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 = 823,967 · 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 | 106,944 | 13.0% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 106,864 | 13.0% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 290,107 | 35.2% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 182,402 | 22.1% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 105,646 | 12.8% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 29,493 | 3.6% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 2,143 | 0.3% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 284 | 0.0% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 84 | 0.0% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $20,247, or $1,687 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.
823,967 filings under one code. That is a population the size of a large occupation with none of a large occupation’s structure: no employer, no schedule, no floor. The distribution below is what that produces.
32,134 filers cleared $100,000 in gross receipts, or 3.9% of the field. Small, but large enough that the upper tier of Beauty Salons is a real destination rather than an anecdote.
This work suits people who are good at keeping a client for years rather than winning one once, because the retention is the business.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 823,967 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 Beauty Salons earns 4.2x the bottom quarter — under $9,634 against over $40,633, a spread of $30,999. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Beauty Salons earns under $9,634 — $40,386 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.
26.0% of the 823,967 Beauty Salons filings in 2022 reported under $10,000 in gross receipts for the year — 213,819 people who took in less than a part-time wage before costs.
Take it as a floor, not an estimate. The $10,000 threshold is measured on money received, before materials, rent, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax, so the true share of filers who ended the year with no income is higher than the figure shown — we simply cannot say how much higher.
What the spread tells you
A ratio of 4.2x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $20,247 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Beauty Salons should plan around it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $9,634 at the 25th percentile, $20,247 at the midpoint, $40,633 at the 75th. $30,999 separates the quarter of Beauty Salons at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $40,633, the 75th percentile, is worth $20,386 a year more than the $20,247 midpoint and $30,999 more than the $9,634 a quarter of Beauty Salons settle for.
From $20,247 the drop to $9,634 is $10,613 and the climb to $40,633 is $20,386. When the upper half of the range is that much longer, the average is pulled well above the median — which is exactly why this site publishes the median.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $4.63 an hour at the 25th percentile, $9.73 at the midpoint and $19.53 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 106,944 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 106,864. $10,000 to $24,999, 290,107. Over $100,000, 32,004 — and 2,511 over $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 $20,247 midpoint for Beauty Salons is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $20,247 salary.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Beauty Salons, the hourly figure is $20,247 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else