Self-employment method
Hunting and Trapping
16,013 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 16,013 people who filed under this code in 2022, 45.13% 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 = 16,013 · 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 | 4,324 | 27.0% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 2,903 | 18.1% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 3,553 | 22.2% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 2,031 | 12.7% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 1,475 | 9.2% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 1,150 | 7.2% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 398 | 2.5% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 119 | 0.7% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 60 | 0.4% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $13,291 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.
At 16,013 filers this is a real but thin national population. There is no established price for Hunting and Trapping at this scale, which cuts both ways: nothing anchors you low and nothing anchors you high.
10.8% 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 fishing, hunting and trapping suits people who can absorb a bad season without borrowing, since quota, weather and price all move against you in the same year.
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 Hunting and Trapping earns 8.7x the bottom quarter — under $4,629 against over $40,137, a spread of $35,508. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Hunting and Trapping earns under $4,629 — $45,391 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 without a plan for the year the catch, the quota or the price fails — all three eventually will.
Of the 16,013 people who filed as Hunting and Trapping in 2022, 45.1% grossed under $10,000 for the year — 7,226 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
A ratio of 8.7x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $13,291 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Hunting and Trapping should plan around it.
In cash terms the middle half of Hunting and Trapping runs $4,629 to $40,137 — $35,508 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $13,291.
Getting to $40,137, the 75th percentile, is worth $26,846 a year more than the $13,291 midpoint and $35,508 more than the $4,629 a quarter of Hunting and Trapping settle for.
The top quarter of Hunting and Trapping begins $26,846 above the $13,291 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $8,662 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.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Hunting and Trapping takes $6.38 in revenue — $2.22 at the bottom quarter and $19.29 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Counted straight off the return: 4,324 filers grossed under $5,000, 2,903 took $5,000 to $9,999, 3,553 took $10,000 to $24,999, 1,727 cleared $100,000 and 577 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $13,291 is turnover — the money that passed through Hunting and Trapping before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Hunting and Trapping, the hourly figure is $13,291 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else