Self-employment method
Other Specialty Food Retailers
91,508 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 91,508 people who filed under this code in 2022, 50.51% 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 = 91,508 · 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 | 31,020 | 33.9% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 15,201 | 16.6% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 18,812 | 20.6% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 10,326 | 11.3% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 7,227 | 7.9% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 5,726 | 6.3% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,903 | 2.1% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 854 | 0.9% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 364 | 0.4% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $9,834 put the typical Other Specialty Food Retailers filer well below any full-time threshold. Revenue at that level covers a hobby’s costs and rarely much beyond them.
With 91,508 filers, Other Specialty Food Retailers is a substantial informal workforce. Enough people do it that local pricing is set by the field rather than by you.
8,876 filers cleared $100,000, which is 9.7% of everyone under this code. A share that size means Other Specialty Food Retailers supports a genuine professional tier, and the question becomes what puts someone in it.
Independent food retail suits people who can be in the shop, since in this category the owner’s presence is most of what separates a good week from a bad one.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 91,508 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
The top quarter of Other Specialty Food Retailers earns 9.1x the bottom quarter — under $3,684 against over $33,575, a spread of $29,891. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Other Specialty Food Retailers earns under $3,684 — $46,336 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 on borrowed money against forecast footfall, which is the assumption that fails most often here.
50.5% of 91,508 filers — 46,220 people — grossed under $10,000 in 2022. More than half of everyone who tried Other Specialty Food Retailers took in less than $10,000 before any expense came out.
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 $3,684 to $33,575 is 9.1x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $9,834 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
Put in money rather than ratios: $3,684 at the 25th percentile, $9,834 at the midpoint, $33,575 at the 75th. $29,891 separates the quarter of Other Specialty Food Retailers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $33,575. Reaching it from the $9,834 midpoint is $23,741 a year; reaching it from the $3,684 that the bottom quarter of Other Specialty Food Retailers earn is $29,891.
The top quarter of Other Specialty Food Retailers begins $23,741 above the $9,834 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $6,150 below it. A range stretched that far in one direction is the signature of a field where a small group earns a great deal more than the middle does.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Other Specialty Food Retailers takes $4.72 in revenue — $1.77 at the bottom quarter and $16.14 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, 31,020 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 15,201. $10,000 to $24,999, 18,812. Over $100,000, 8,847 — and 3,121 over $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 $9,834 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $9,834 wage and should never be read as one.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Other Specialty Food Retailers, the hourly figure is $9,834 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