Self-employment method
Nonresidential building construction
105,622 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 105,622 people who filed under this code in 2022, 25.78% 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 = 105,622 · 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 | 16,281 | 15.5% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 10,950 | 10.5% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 23,058 | 22.0% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 18,408 | 17.6% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 13,596 | 13.0% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 11,021 | 10.5% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 5,397 | 5.2% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 3,501 | 3.3% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 2,511 | 2.4% |
Who this suits
At a $27,815 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.
With 105,622 filers, Nonresidential building construction is a substantial informal workforce. Enough people do it that local pricing is set by the field rather than by you.
21.4% of filers grossed $100,000 or more. At that share the upper band is not an exception, it is a large minority of the field — though gross receipts at this level usually carry proportionate costs.
Independent building construction suits people who can carry a project financially between draws, because the money arrives well behind the work every time.
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 — $9,520 against $86,206, or $6,390 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 Nonresidential building construction earns under $9,520 — $40,500 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 working capital for the draw schedule; being owed money by a developer is the standard failure here.
27,229 of the 105,622 people filing in 2022 grossed under $10,000 across twelve months — 25.8% of the field. A quarter or more of everyone in Nonresidential building construction took in less revenue than a part-time job would have paid in wages.
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 9.1x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $27,815 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Nonresidential building construction should plan around it.
The middle half of this field earns between $9,520 and $86,206. That is $76,686 of range, with $27,815 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Getting to $86,206, the 75th percentile, is worth $58,391 a year more than the $27,815 midpoint and $76,686 more than the $9,520 a quarter of Nonresidential building construction settle for.
$18,295 below the midpoint, $58,391 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Nonresidential building construction that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Nonresidential building construction takes $13.37 in revenue — $4.57 at the bottom quarter and $41.44 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 Nonresidential building construction: 16,281 filers under $5,000, 10,950 between $5,000 and $9,999, 23,058 between $10,000 and $24,999, 22,430 above $100,000 and 11,409 above $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 $27,815 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $27,815 wage and should never be read as one.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Nonresidential building construction, the hourly figure is $27,815 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