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 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 | 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
$55,744 in median gross receipts — $4,645 a month — is a strong figure for this dataset. Revenue at that level survives a normal cost base, which is not true of most codes on this site.
277,895 filings make this a crowded field. Crowding is not automatically bad, but it does mean the price of the work is set by whoever will do it cheapest.
34.5% of filers grossed $100,000 or more. At that share the upper band is not an exception, it is a large minority of the field — though gross receipts at this level usually carry proportionate costs.
Owner-operator trucking suits people who track cost per mile honestly, including the depreciation nobody invoices for, and treat maintenance as a scheduled expense.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 277,895 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
8.6x between the quarters — $18,313 against $157,543, or $11,602 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 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
At 8.6x, the gap between $18,313 and $157,543 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $55,744 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
Put in money rather than ratios: $18,313 at the 25th percentile, $55,744 at the midpoint, $157,543 at the 75th. $139,230 separates the quarter of General Freight Trucking, Local at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $157,543. Reaching it from the $55,744 midpoint is $101,799 a year; reaching it from the $18,313 that the bottom quarter of General Freight Trucking, Local earn is $139,230.
The top quarter of General Freight Trucking, Local begins $101,799 above the $55,744 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $37,431 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 $8.80 an hour at the 25th percentile, $26.80 at the midpoint and $75.74 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
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
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $55,744 is turnover — the money that passed through General Freight Trucking, Local before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
The hourly number on this page is $55,744 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for General Freight Trucking, Local, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else