Self-employment method
General Merchandise Retailers
200,567 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 200,567 people who filed under this code in 2022, 48.95% 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 = 200,567 · 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 | 65,956 | 32.9% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 32,215 | 16.1% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 39,991 | 20.0% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 24,749 | 12.4% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 17,036 | 8.5% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 12,787 | 6.4% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 4,601 | 2.3% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 2,160 | 1.1% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 859 | 0.4% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $10,752 put the typical filer somewhere between a serious side income and a failing attempt at a full-time one, and the receipts figure alone cannot tell you which.
With 200,567 filers, General Merchandise Retailers is a substantial informal workforce. Enough people do it that local pricing is set by the field rather than by you.
10.2% of filers grossed $100,000 or more. That is a substantial upper tier by the standards of this dataset — the difference between a full operation and an occasional one is visible in the distribution rather than only in the anecdotes.
Independent general merchandise retail suits people running a genuinely local proposition, because on price alone this category is not winnable.
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 Merchandise Retailers earns 9.8x the bottom quarter — under $3,797 against over $37,226, a spread of $33,429. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of General Merchandise Retailers earns under $3,797 — $46,223 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 expecting to compete on price with national chains; that comparison has one outcome.
Of the 200,567 people who filed as General Merchandise Retailers in 2022, 49.0% grossed under $10,000 for the year — 98,177 people who did not clear a part-time wage in revenue, let alone in profit.
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.
What the spread tells you
From $3,797 to $37,226 is 9.8x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $10,752 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
In cash terms the middle half of General Merchandise Retailers runs $3,797 to $37,226 — $33,429 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $10,752.
Between $3,797 and $37,226 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $10,752. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $26,474; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $33,429.
$6,955 below the midpoint, $26,474 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of General Merchandise Retailers that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Spread across a 2,080-hour year those receipts come to $5.16 an hour at the midpoint, $1.82 at the 25th percentile and $17.89 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.
Straight from the Census bands for General Merchandise Retailers: 65,956 filers under $5,000, 32,215 between $5,000 and $9,999, 39,991 between $10,000 and $24,999, 20,407 above $100,000 and 7,620 above $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 $10,752 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $10,752 wage and should never be read as one.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $10,752 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