Self-employment method
Crude Petroleum Extraction
41,041 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 41,041 people who filed under this code in 2022, 35.80% 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 = 41,041 · 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 | 9,245 | 22.5% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 5,447 | 13.3% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 7,021 | 17.1% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 5,090 | 12.4% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 4,783 | 11.7% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 5,065 | 12.3% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 2,612 | 6.4% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 1,360 | 3.3% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 418 | 1.0% |
Who this suits
At a $22,452 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 41,041 filers, this is a populated field. The market sets the price rather than you, and the useful question is what would let you charge above it.
9,439 filers, 23.0% of the total, took $100,000 or more in receipts. Read the size of that group as evidence about turnover in Crude Petroleum Extraction rather than about income: the costs scale with it.
Independent oil and gas work is contract work attached to someone else’s capital programme, so it follows the drilling cycle rather than any effort you make.
There is no qualification, licence or minimum to appear in this data — you file and you are counted. Read the receipts distribution as the price of that: no barrier at the door means no filter before the numbers.
Who should not do this
15.4x between the quarters — $5,932 against $91,582, or $7,137 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 Crude Petroleum Extraction earns under $5,932 — $44,088 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 expecting steady work; the cycle turns off quickly and takes contractors with it.
14,692 filers out of 41,041 — 35.8% — reported under $10,000 in gross receipts in 2022. At that share the bottom band is not a warning about beginners; it is a description of a large part of the field.
That share is a floor, not an estimate: $10,000 is revenue, not earnings. Everyone counted inside it kept less than $10,000, and an unknown number of the filers above it also finished the year with nothing after costs.
What the spread tells you
From $5,932 to $91,582 is 15.4x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $22,452 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
In cash terms the middle half of Crude Petroleum Extraction runs $5,932 to $91,582 — $85,650 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $22,452.
The 75th percentile is $91,582. Reaching it from the $22,452 midpoint is $69,130 a year; reaching it from the $5,932 that the bottom quarter of Crude Petroleum Extraction earn is $85,650.
$16,520 below the midpoint, $69,130 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Crude Petroleum Extraction 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 Crude Petroleum Extraction takes $10.79 in revenue — $2.85 at the bottom quarter and $44.02 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: 9,245 filers grossed under $5,000, 5,447 took $5,000 to $9,999, 7,021 took $10,000 to $24,999, 9,455 cleared $100,000 and 4,390 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
These are GROSS RECEIPTS: everything that came in, before expenses. Rent, stock, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax all come out of the $22,452 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $22,452 wage and should never be read as one.
The hourly number on this page is $22,452 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Crude Petroleum Extraction, 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