Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors

At a $28,502 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.

At 299,418 filers, Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors 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.

61,979 filers, 20.7% of the total, took $100,000 or more in receipts. Read the size of that group as evidence about turnover in Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors rather than about income: the costs scale with it.

Going independent in a specialty trade converts a wage into a bid, and suits people who can estimate, schedule and chase payment as well as they can do the work.

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.

Bottom quarter under $9,549, top quarter over $84,308: 8.8x, or $6,229 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 Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors earns under $9,549 — $40,471 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 if you have never priced a job. Underbidding is the most common way people in this trade work a full year for nothing.

77,609 of the 299,418 people filing in 2022 grossed under $10,000 across twelve months — 25.9% of the field. A quarter or more of everyone in Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors took in less revenue than a part-time job would have paid in wages.

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.

From $9,549 to $84,308 is 8.8x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $28,502 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.

In cash terms the middle half of Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors runs $9,549 to $84,308 — $74,759 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $28,502.

The 75th percentile is $84,308. Reaching it from the $28,502 midpoint is $55,806 a year; reaching it from the $9,549 that the bottom quarter of Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors earn is $74,759.

The top quarter of Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors begins $55,806 above the $28,502 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $18,953 below it. A range stretched that far in one direction is the signature of a field where a small group earns a great deal more than the middle does.

Spread across a 2,080-hour year those receipts come to $13.70 an hour at the midpoint, $4.59 at the 25th percentile and $40.53 at the 75th. That is turnover per hour, not pay per hour, and it is not comparable with the $24.04 an hour a typical American job pays.

The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 47,102 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 30,505. $10,000 to $24,999, 64,512. Over $100,000, 61,930 — and 26,496 over $250,000.