Self-employment method
Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing
21,384 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 21,384 people who filed under this code in 2022, 34.57% 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 = 21,384 · 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 | 4,384 | 20.5% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 3,009 | 14.1% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 4,567 | 21.4% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 3,394 | 15.9% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 2,713 | 12.7% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 2,151 | 10.1% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 794 | 3.7% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 372 | 1.7% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $20,835, or $1,736 a month before expenses. That is an operating business at part-time scale: enough revenue to be worth running properly, not enough to be the only thing in the household.
21,384 people filed under this code, almost none of whom appear in any employment statistic. Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing is part of the economy salary surveys simply do not see.
15.5% of filers grossed $100,000 or more, which is high for this dataset. A substantial share of this field is running an actual business rather than an occasional one.
Independent furniture making suits people who can sell a commission before building it, because holding finished stock in this trade is how the cash disappears.
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
9.5x between the quarters — $6,599 against $62,606, or $4,667 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 Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing earns under $6,599 — $43,421 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 by building stock speculatively; unsold inventory is where the money in this trade goes to die.
34.6% of the 21,384 people who filed in 2022 grossed under $10,000 for the year — 7,392 people. Approaching half of everyone who tried Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing took in less revenue 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
From $6,599 to $62,606 is 9.5x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $20,835 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
The middle half of this field earns between $6,599 and $62,606. That is $56,007 of range, with $20,835 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $62,606. Reaching it from the $20,835 midpoint is $41,771 a year; reaching it from the $6,599 that the bottom quarter of Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing earn is $56,007.
$14,236 below the midpoint, $41,771 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing 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 Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing takes $10.01 in revenue — $3.17 at the bottom quarter and $30.09 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 4,384 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 3,009. $10,000 to $24,999, 4,567. Over $100,000, 3,317 — and 1,166 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 $20,835 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $20,835 wage and should never be read as one.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $20,835 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