Self-employment method
Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians)
206,610 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 206,610 people who filed under this code in 2022, 24.57% 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 = 206,610 · 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 | 28,647 | 13.9% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 22,117 | 10.7% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 38,951 | 18.9% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 38,571 | 18.7% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 45,080 | 21.8% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 28,681 | 13.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 3,781 | 1.8% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 711 | 0.3% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 71 | 0.0% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $33,808, or $2,817 a month before expenses. That is an operating business at part-time scale: enough revenue to be worth running properly, not enough to be the only thing in the household.
With 206,610 filers, Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians) is a substantial informal workforce. Enough people do it that local pricing is set by the field rather than by you.
16.1% of filers grossed $100,000 or more, which is high for this dataset. A substantial share of this field is running an actual business rather than an occasional one.
Independent practice here suits clinicians who can also run a small business — credentialing, claims, insurance and payroll are the other half of the job.
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
The top quarter of Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians) earns 7.7x the bottom quarter — under $10,342 against over $79,582, a spread of $69,240. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians) earns under $10,342 — $39,678 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 understanding reimbursement timelines. Being owed money by a payer is not the same as being paid.
50,764 of the 206,610 people filing in 2022 grossed under $10,000 across twelve months — 24.6% of the field. A quarter or more of everyone in Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians) 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
From $10,342 to $79,582 is 7.7x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $33,808 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
In cash terms the middle half of Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians) runs $10,342 to $79,582 — $69,240 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $33,808.
The 75th percentile is $79,582. Reaching it from the $33,808 midpoint is $45,774 a year; reaching it from the $10,342 that the bottom quarter of Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians) earn is $69,240.
From $33,808 the drop to $10,342 is $23,466 and the climb to $79,582 is $45,774. When the upper half of the range is that much longer, the average is pulled well above the median — which is exactly why this site publishes the median.
Spread across a 2,080-hour year those receipts come to $16.25 an hour at the midpoint, $4.97 at the 25th percentile and $38.26 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, 28,647 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 22,117. $10,000 to $24,999, 38,951. Over $100,000, 33,244 — and 4,563 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $33,808 is turnover — the money that passed through Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians) 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 Offices of Mental Health Practitioners (except Physicians), the hourly figure is $33,808 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