Self-employment method
Home Health Care Services
398,413 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 398,413 people who filed under this code in 2022, 42.89% 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 = 398,413 · 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 | 95,841 | 24.1% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 75,042 | 18.8% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 132,445 | 33.2% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 58,492 | 14.7% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 25,922 | 6.5% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 8,865 | 2.2% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,350 | 0.3% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 283 | 0.1% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 173 | 0.0% |
Who this suits
At the midpoint this work grossed $13,208 for the year — $1,100 a month in revenue. That is a real second income and a long way short of a first one, and Census cannot tell you which of those the typical filer intended.
398,413 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.
The share clearing $100,000 in receipts is 2.7%. That is roughly one filer in forty, which is the honest denominator behind any story you have read about doing Home Health Care Services full time.
Independent ambulatory care is licensed, insured and reimbursement-driven; it suits people who can run the billing side as seriously as the clinical side.
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
4.7x between the quarters — $5,251 against $24,488, or $1,603 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 Home Health Care Services earns under $5,251 — $44,769 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 assuming billed equals paid. The difference between the two is the working capital you will need.
42.9% of 398,413 filers in 2022 took under $10,000 across the entire year: 170,879 people. Close to half of everyone in Home Health Care Services is in that band, and gross receipts is the generous way of counting it.
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 $5,251 to $24,488 is 4.7x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $13,208 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
In cash terms the middle half of Home Health Care Services runs $5,251 to $24,488 — $19,237 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $13,208.
Between $5,251 and $24,488 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $13,208. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $11,280; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $19,237.
$11,280 separates $13,208 from the $24,488 top quarter, while only $7,957 separates it from $5,251. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Home Health Care Services has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Home Health Care Services takes $6.35 in revenue — $2.52 at the bottom quarter and $11.77 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Straight from the Census bands for Home Health Care Services: 95,841 filers under $5,000, 75,042 between $5,000 and $9,999, 132,445 between $10,000 and $24,999, 10,671 above $100,000 and 1,806 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $13,208 is turnover — the money that passed through Home Health Care Services before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $13,208 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