Self-employment method
Child Care Services
547,758 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 547,758 people who filed under this code in 2022, 43.25% 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 = 547,758 · 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 | 114,520 | 20.9% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 122,360 | 22.3% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 207,241 | 37.8% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 56,054 | 10.2% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 34,395 | 6.3% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 12,110 | 2.2% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 937 | 0.2% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 92 | 0.0% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 49 | 0.0% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $12,678 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.
At 547,758 filers, Child Care Services is crowded. Crowding is survivable — most of those filers are not serious competitors — but it does mean the floor on price is set by people who are not costing their own time.
2.4% of filers grossed $100,000 or more: 13,146 people out of the whole field. There is an upper tier, it is real, and it is small enough that reaching it should be treated as an outcome rather than a plan.
Independent social assistance work suits people who can operate on public and grant funding, where the contract terms decide the business more than the demand does.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 547,758 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
Bottom quarter under $5,916, top quarter over $22,590: 3.8x, or $1,389 a month. At this stretch the label has stopped describing one occupation, and every summary statistic about it — including the midpoint — should be treated with suspicion.
The bottom quarter of Child Care Services earns under $5,916 — $44,104 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 dependent on a single grant or contract cycle you have no influence over.
Of the 547,758 people who filed as Child Care Services in 2022, 43.2% grossed under $10,000 for the year — 236,905 people who did not clear a part-time wage in revenue, let alone in profit.
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 3.8x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $12,678 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Child Care Services should plan around it.
The middle half of this field earns between $5,916 and $22,590. That is $16,674 of range, with $12,678 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $22,590. Reaching it from the $12,678 midpoint is $9,912 a year; reaching it from the $5,916 that the bottom quarter of Child Care Services earn is $16,674.
The climb from $12,678 to $22,590 is $9,912, against $6,762 down to $5,916. Rather more of the range sits above the midpoint than below it, so the realistic upside in Child Care Services is larger than the realistic downside.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Child Care Services takes $6.09 in revenue — $2.84 at the bottom quarter and $10.86 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 Child Care Services: 114,520 filers under $5,000, 122,360 between $5,000 and $9,999, 207,241 between $10,000 and $24,999, 13,188 above $100,000 and 1,078 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $12,678 is turnover — the money that passed through Child Care Services 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 $12,678 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Child Care Services, 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