Self-employment method
General Freight Trucking, Local
277,895 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 277,895 people who filed under this code in 2022, 16.10% 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 = 277,895 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full receipts distribution as Census publishes it. The median above is interpolated inside whichever band contains the 50th percentile, so this table is what that figure is derived from.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 24,536 | 8.8% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 20,202 | 7.3% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 44,634 | 16.1% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 43,971 | 15.8% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 48,788 | 17.6% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 68,532 | 24.7% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 18,520 | 6.7% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 5,974 | 2.1% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 2,738 | 1.0% |
Who this suits
A median of $55,744 in gross receipts is high for a nonemployer business. Enough revenue passes through the middle of this field that a full-time living is plausible for the people running it well.
With 277,895 filers, General Freight Trucking, Local is a substantial informal workforce. Enough people do it that local pricing is set by the field rather than by you.
34.5% 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.
Owner-operator transport suits people who track cost per mile honestly, including the depreciation nobody invoices for, and who treat maintenance as a scheduled expense rather than an emergency.
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
The top quarter of General Freight Trucking, Local earns 8.6x the bottom quarter — under $18,313 against over $157,543, a spread of $139,230. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of General Freight Trucking, Local earns under $18,313 — $31,707 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 a major repair would end you. Depreciation and maintenance are what separate the gross receipts below from anything you keep.
Of the 277,895 people who filed as General Freight Trucking, Local in 2022, 16.1% — about 44,741 of them — grossed under $10,000 for the entire year, before a single expense was deducted. That is the gentlest end of this dataset and it is still roughly one filer in four.
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
A ratio of 8.6x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $55,744 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering General Freight Trucking, Local should plan around it.
In cash terms the middle half of General Freight Trucking, Local runs $18,313 to $157,543 — $139,230 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $55,744.
Getting to $157,543, the 75th percentile, is worth $101,799 a year more than the $55,744 midpoint and $139,230 more than the $18,313 a quarter of General Freight Trucking, Local settle for.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $26.80 at the midpoint for General Freight Trucking, Local, $8.80 at the 25th percentile and $75.74 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
Counted straight off the return: 24,536 filers grossed under $5,000, 20,202 took $5,000 to $9,999, 44,634 took $10,000 to $24,999, 95,764 cleared $100,000 and 27,232 cleared $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 $55,744 midpoint for General Freight Trucking, Local is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $55,744 salary.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for General Freight Trucking, Local, the hourly figure is $55,744 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · Look up something else