Self-employment method
Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers
12,401 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 12,401 people who filed under this code in 2022, 26.96% 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 = 12,401 · 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 | 1,985 | 16.0% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 1,358 | 11.0% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 2,199 | 17.7% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 1,753 | 14.1% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 1,632 | 13.2% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 1,844 | 14.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 907 | 7.3% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 543 | 4.4% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 180 | 1.5% |
Who this suits
At a $34,391 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.
12,401 people filed under this code — enough that the work exists everywhere and not enough that it supports a visible trade. Most people doing Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers are doing it alongside something else.
3,472 filers, 28.0% of the total, took $100,000 or more in receipts. Read the size of that group as evidence about turnover in Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers rather than about income: the costs scale with it.
Independent durable-goods wholesaling suits people comfortable carrying inventory or credit risk between two parties who both already know the price.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 12,401 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
The top quarter of Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers earns 14.3x the bottom quarter — under $9,106 against over $130,403, a spread of $121,297. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers earns under $9,106 — $40,914 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 cannot fund inventory or extend credit terms — both are the actual product.
27.0% of the 12,401 Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers filings in 2022 reported under $10,000 in gross receipts for the year — 3,343 people who took in less than a part-time wage before costs.
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
At 14.3x, the gap between $9,106 and $130,403 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $34,391 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
The middle half of this field earns between $9,106 and $130,403. That is $121,297 of range, with $34,391 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $9,106 and $130,403 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $34,391. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $96,012; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $121,297.
The top quarter of Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers begins $96,012 above the $34,391 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $25,285 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.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $4.37 an hour at the 25th percentile, $16.53 at the midpoint and $62.69 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, 1,985 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 1,358. $10,000 to $24,999, 2,199. Over $100,000, 3,474 — and 1,630 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Every figure above is GROSS RECEIPTS, before expenses — money that arrived before rent, materials, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax. The $34,391 midpoint for Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $34,391 salary.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $34,391 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else