Self-employment method
Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers
266,574 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 266,574 people who filed under this code in 2022, 49.11% 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 = 266,574 · 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 | 86,439 | 32.4% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 44,485 | 16.7% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 58,624 | 22.0% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 31,870 | 12.0% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 21,356 | 8.0% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 15,687 | 5.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 5,148 | 1.9% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 2,008 | 0.8% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 788 | 0.3% |
Who this suits
At the midpoint this work grossed $10,583 for the year — $881 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.
266,574 filings make this a crowded field. Crowding is not automatically bad, but it does mean the price of the work is set by whoever will do it cheapest.
23,725 filers cleared $100,000, which is 8.9% of everyone under this code. A share that size means Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers supports a genuine professional tier, and the question becomes what puts someone in it.
Independent clothing and accessory retail suits people with a buying instinct, since the season is bought months before anyone knows whether it was right.
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
8.6x between the quarters — $3,853 against $33,045, or $2,432 a month. This is the shape of a field where a minority does very well and the summary statistics quietly borrow their success.
The bottom quarter of Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers earns under $3,853 — $46,167 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 markdown discipline. A season bought wrong is paid for at the end of it, in cash.
Of the 266,574 people who filed as Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers in 2022, 49.1% grossed under $10,000 for the year — 130,914 people who did not clear a part-time wage in revenue, let alone in profit.
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 8.6x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $10,583 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers should plan around it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $3,853 at the 25th percentile, $10,583 at the midpoint, $33,045 at the 75th. $29,192 separates the quarter of Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $3,853 and $33,045 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $10,583. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $22,462; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $29,192.
$6,730 below the midpoint, $22,462 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers takes $5.08 in revenue — $1.85 at the bottom quarter and $15.88 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Counted straight off the return: 86,439 filers grossed under $5,000, 44,485 took $5,000 to $9,999, 58,624 took $10,000 to $24,999, 23,631 cleared $100,000 and 7,944 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $10,583 is turnover — the money that passed through Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers 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 $10,583 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers, 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