Self-employment method
Other Health and Personal Care Retailers
149,411 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 149,411 people who filed under this code in 2022, 56.49% 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 = 149,411 · 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 | 59,862 | 40.1% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 24,545 | 16.4% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 27,942 | 18.7% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 15,842 | 10.6% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 10,496 | 7.0% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 6,927 | 4.6% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 2,144 | 1.4% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 1,009 | 0.7% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 495 | 0.3% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $8,009 for the year — about $667 a month in revenue before expenses. That is pocket money at the midpoint, and the midpoint is by definition where half the field is or below.
149,411 people filed under this code. A field that large has a settled price, a settled set of expectations, and no shortage of people willing to meet both.
7.1% cleared $100,000 in receipts. That is a meaningful upper tier and it is worth asking what separates them, because it is rarely effort alone.
Independent health and personal care retail suits people who can operate inside the licensing and record-keeping the category carries.
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
8.0x between the quarters — $3,117 against $24,784, or $1,805 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 Other Health and Personal Care Retailers earns under $3,117 — $46,903 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 the licensing and record-keeping; the compliance burden arrives before the customers do.
The majority of this field — 56.5%, or 84,402 of 149,411 filers in 2022 — grossed under $10,000 for the year. When more than half the population is in the bottom band, that band is the normal outcome of Other Health and Personal Care Retailers, not the failure case.
Read that as a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes gross receipts, not net income, so everyone inside that share earned less than $10,000 suggests once costs came out — and filers who grossed well above $10,000 may still have netted nothing.
What the spread tells you
At 8.0x, the gap between $3,117 and $24,784 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $8,009 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
In cash terms the middle half of Other Health and Personal Care Retailers runs $3,117 to $24,784 — $21,667 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $8,009.
Getting to $24,784, the 75th percentile, is worth $16,775 a year more than the $8,009 midpoint and $21,667 more than the $3,117 a quarter of Other Health and Personal Care Retailers settle for.
$4,892 below the midpoint, $16,775 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Other Health and Personal Care Retailers 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 Other Health and Personal Care Retailers takes $3.85 in revenue — $1.49 at the bottom quarter and $11.91 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 59,862 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 24,545. $10,000 to $24,999, 27,942. Over $100,000, 10,575 — and 3,648 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $8,009 is turnover — the money that passed through Other Health and Personal Care Retailers 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 Other Health and Personal Care Retailers, the hourly figure is $8,009 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