Self-employment method
Machinery Manufacturing
15,714 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 15,714 people who filed under this code in 2022, 31.02% 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 = 15,714 · 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 | 2,897 | 18.4% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 1,978 | 12.6% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 3,006 | 19.1% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 2,306 | 14.7% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 2,210 | 14.1% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 2,025 | 12.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 867 | 5.5% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 416 | 2.6% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 9 | 0.1% |
Who this suits
At a $24,880 median in gross receipts, the typical person under this code is running a real but part-time operation. Full-time equivalence would require roughly triple this before costs.
At 15,714 filers this is a real but thin national population. There is no established price for Machinery Manufacturing at this scale, which cuts both ways: nothing anchors you low and nothing anchors you high.
3,315 filers, 21.1% of the total, took $100,000 or more in receipts. Read the size of that group as evidence about turnover in Machinery Manufacturing rather than about income: the costs scale with it.
Independent machinery work suits people building or rebuilding for a specific industrial customer, where the relationship matters more than any catalogue.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 15,714 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
11.3x between the quarters — $7,607 against $86,165, or $6,546 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 Machinery Manufacturing earns under $7,607 — $42,413 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 dependent on one industrial customer, because their capital plan is then your business plan.
Of 15,714 filers in 2022, 31.0% took under $10,000 across the whole year in gross receipts: 4,874 people. Whatever the working version of Machinery Manufacturing looks like, a third or more never reach 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
A ratio of 11.3x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $24,880 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Machinery Manufacturing should plan around it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $7,607 at the 25th percentile, $24,880 at the midpoint, $86,165 at the 75th. $78,558 separates the quarter of Machinery Manufacturing at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $86,165, the 75th percentile, is worth $61,285 a year more than the $24,880 midpoint and $78,558 more than the $7,607 a quarter of Machinery Manufacturing settle for.
$17,273 below the midpoint, $61,285 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Machinery Manufacturing 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 $11.96 an hour at the midpoint, $3.65 at the 25th percentile and $41.42 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.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 2,897 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 1,978. $10,000 to $24,999, 3,006. Over $100,000, 3,317 — and 1,292 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 $24,880 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $24,880 wage and should never be read as one.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $24,880 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