Self-employment method
Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Retailers
118,340 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 118,340 people who filed under this code in 2022, 55.94% 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 = 118,340 · 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 | 45,380 | 38.4% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 20,814 | 17.6% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 23,420 | 19.8% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 12,347 | 10.4% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 8,060 | 6.8% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 5,764 | 4.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,668 | 1.4% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 614 | 0.5% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 222 | 0.2% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $8,307 put the typical Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Retailers filer well below any full-time threshold. Revenue at that level covers a hobby’s costs and rarely much beyond them.
With 118,340 filers, Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Retailers is a substantial informal workforce. Enough people do it that local pricing is set by the field rather than by you.
8,283 people — 7.0% of filers — grossed $100,000 or more. At that share the upper tier is visible from inside the field, which usually means someone doing Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Retailers locally can tell you what those people do differently.
Independent hobby, book, sporting and miscellaneous retail suits people selling into an enthusiasm they genuinely share, because knowledge is most of the differentiation left.
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
7.5x between the quarters — $3,258 against $24,425, or $1,763 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 Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Retailers earns under $3,258 — $46,762 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 on enthusiasm alone; a shared interest with your customers is not by itself a margin.
The majority of this field — 55.9%, or 66,199 of 118,340 filers in 2022 — grossed under $10,000 for the year. When more than half the population is in the bottom band, that band is the normal outcome of Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Retailers, not the failure case.
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 $3,258 to $24,425 is 7.5x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $8,307 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
The middle half of this field earns between $3,258 and $24,425. That is $21,167 of range, with $8,307 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $24,425. Reaching it from the $8,307 midpoint is $16,118 a year; reaching it from the $3,258 that the bottom quarter of Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Retailers earn is $21,167.
$5,049 below the midpoint, $16,118 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Retailers that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $1.56 an hour at the 25th percentile, $3.99 at the midpoint and $11.74 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, 45,380 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 20,814. $10,000 to $24,999, 23,420. Over $100,000, 8,268 — and 2,504 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 $8,307 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $8,307 wage and should never be read as one.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $8,307 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