Self-employment method
Educational Services
859,958 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 859,958 people who filed under this code in 2022, 64.32% 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 = 859,958 · 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 | 383,485 | 44.6% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 169,610 | 19.7% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 167,276 | 19.5% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 75,699 | 8.8% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 39,388 | 4.6% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 18,834 | 2.2% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 4,073 | 0.5% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 1,344 | 0.2% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 249 | 0.0% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $6,371 for the year — about $530 a month in revenue before expenses. That is pocket money at the midpoint, and the midpoint is by definition where half the field is or below.
859,958 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.
The share clearing $100,000 in receipts is 2.8%. That is roughly one filer in forty, which is the honest denominator behind any story you have read about doing Educational Services full time.
Independent teaching and tutoring suit people who can fill a timetable and hold it, since the constraint is not demand for the subject but the hours families will commit to.
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
Bottom quarter under $2,803, top quarter over $18,238: 6.5x, or $1,286 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 Educational Services earns under $2,803 — $47,217 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 summer income; the timetable collapses for a quarter of the year and the bills do not.
64.3% of the 859,958 people who filed as Educational Services in 2022 grossed under $10,000 for the entire year, before expenses: 553,124 people. The majority outcome here is not a small income, it is effectively no income.
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
A ratio of 6.5x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $6,371 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Educational Services should plan around it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $2,803 at the 25th percentile, $6,371 at the midpoint, $18,238 at the 75th. $15,435 separates the quarter of Educational Services at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $18,238, the 75th percentile, is worth $11,867 a year more than the $6,371 midpoint and $15,435 more than the $2,803 a quarter of Educational Services settle for.
$3,568 below the midpoint, $11,867 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Educational Services that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $1.34 an hour at the 25th percentile, $3.06 at the midpoint and $8.76 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, 383,485 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 169,610. $10,000 to $24,999, 167,276. Over $100,000, 24,500 — and 5,666 over $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 $6,371 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $6,371 wage and should never be read as one.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Educational Services, the hourly figure is $6,371 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