Self-employment method
Other Building Material Dealers
17,359 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 17,359 people who filed under this code in 2022, 31.78% 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 = 17,359 · 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 | 3,492 | 20.3% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 2,024 | 11.8% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 2,960 | 17.2% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 2,163 | 12.6% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 2,044 | 11.9% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 2,218 | 12.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,123 | 6.5% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 756 | 4.4% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 430 | 2.5% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $26,491, or $2,207 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.
At 17,359 filers this is a real but thin national population. There is no established price for Other Building Material Dealers at this scale, which cuts both ways: nothing anchors you low and nothing anchors you high.
26.3% 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 and garden supply retail suits people serving trade customers as much as households, because the repeat trade account is what makes the year.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 17,359 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
Bottom quarter under $7,002, top quarter over $115,183: 16.5x, or $9,015 a month. At this stretch the label has stopped describing one occupation, and every summary statistic about it — including the midpoint — should be treated with suspicion.
The bottom quarter of Other Building Material Dealers earns under $7,002 — $43,018 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 if your capital is all going into stock. Unsold inventory is the standard failure mode here.
Of 17,359 filers in 2022, 31.8% took under $10,000 across the whole year in gross receipts: 5,516 people. Whatever the working version of Other Building Material Dealers looks like, a third or more never reach it.
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
At 16.5x, the gap between $7,002 and $115,183 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $26,491 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
Put in money rather than ratios: $7,002 at the 25th percentile, $26,491 at the midpoint, $115,183 at the 75th. $108,181 separates the quarter of Other Building Material Dealers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $7,002 and $115,183 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $26,491. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $88,692; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $108,181.
$19,489 below the midpoint, $88,692 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Other Building Material Dealers 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 $12.73 an hour at the midpoint, $3.36 at the 25th percentile and $55.37 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, 3,492 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 2,024. $10,000 to $24,999, 2,960. Over $100,000, 4,527 — and 2,309 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $26,491 is turnover — the money that passed through Other Building Material Dealers before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $26,491 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