Self-employment method
Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling
39,884 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 39,884 people who filed under this code in 2022, 49.02% 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 = 39,884 · 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 | 12,982 | 32.5% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 6,569 | 16.5% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 8,477 | 21.3% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 4,777 | 12.0% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 3,314 | 8.3% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 2,362 | 5.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 872 | 2.2% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 359 | 0.9% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 172 | 0.4% |
Who this suits
At the midpoint this work grossed $10,692 for the year — $891 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.
39,884 filings sit behind this code — a workforce the size of a mid-sized occupation that no payroll survey counts, because none of it runs through a payroll.
9.4% 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.
Professional services are the classic solo business: low capital, high skill, and a ceiling set by how many hours you can sell. It suits people who can market as competently as they deliver.
There is no qualification, licence or minimum to appear in this data — you file and you are counted. Read the receipts distribution as the price of that: no barrier at the door means no filter before the numbers.
Who should not do this
9.1x between the quarters — $3,840 against $34,865, or $2,585 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 Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling earns under $3,840 — $46,180 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 pricing by the hour if you cannot fill the hours; the ceiling is arithmetic and it arrives sooner than you think.
Of the 39,884 people who filed as Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling in 2022, 49.0% grossed under $10,000 for the year — 19,551 people who did not clear a part-time wage in revenue, let alone in profit.
That share is a floor, not an estimate: $10,000 is revenue, not earnings. Everyone counted inside it kept less than $10,000, and an unknown number of the filers above it also finished the year with nothing after costs.
What the spread tells you
From $3,840 to $34,865 is 9.1x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $10,692 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
The middle half of this field earns between $3,840 and $34,865. That is $31,025 of range, with $10,692 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $3,840 and $34,865 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $10,692. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $24,173; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $31,025.
$6,852 below the midpoint, $24,173 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling 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 $1.84 an hour at the 25th percentile, $5.14 at the midpoint and $16.76 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
Straight from the Census bands for Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling: 12,982 filers under $5,000, 6,569 between $5,000 and $9,999, 8,477 between $10,000 and $24,999, 3,765 above $100,000 and 1,403 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $10,692 is turnover — the money that passed through Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling 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 Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling, the hourly figure is $10,692 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