Self-employment method
Other Specialty Trade Contractors
589,854 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 589,854 people who filed under this code in 2022, 30.02% 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 = 589,854 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full receipts distribution as Census publishes it. The median above is interpolated inside whichever band contains the 50th percentile, so this table is what that figure is derived from.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 110,099 | 18.7% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 66,998 | 11.4% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 121,624 | 20.6% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 96,882 | 16.4% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 81,642 | 13.8% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 71,142 | 12.1% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 28,223 | 4.8% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 13,234 | 2.2% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 10 | 0.0% |
Who this suits
At a $24,532 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.
589,854 filings make this a crowded field. Crowding is not automatically bad, but it does mean the price of the work is set by whoever will do it cheapest.
19.1% 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.
Going independent in construction converts a wage into a bid. It suits people who can price a job accurately, because the whole margin lives in the estimate rather than in the work.
There is no training requirement to file under this code — which is precisely why so many people appear in the bottom bands. Entry being free is not the same as the work being viable.
Who should not do this
The top quarter of Other Specialty Trade Contractors earns 10.1x the bottom quarter — under $7,788 against over $78,654, a spread of $70,866. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Other Specialty Trade Contractors earns under $7,788 — $42,232 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 you have never priced a job. Underbidding is the single most common way people in this sector work a full year for nothing.
Of 589,854 filers in 2022, 30.0% took under $10,000 across the whole year in gross receipts: 177,074 people. Whatever the working version of Other Specialty Trade Contractors looks like, a third or more never reach it.
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
A ratio of 10.1x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $24,532 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Other Specialty Trade Contractors should plan around it.
In cash terms the middle half of Other Specialty Trade Contractors runs $7,788 to $78,654 — $70,866 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $24,532.
Getting to $78,654, the 75th percentile, is worth $54,122 a year more than the $24,532 midpoint and $70,866 more than the $7,788 a quarter of Other Specialty Trade Contractors settle for.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $11.79 at the midpoint for Other Specialty Trade Contractors, $3.74 at the 25th percentile and $37.81 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
Counted straight off the return: 110,099 filers grossed under $5,000, 66,998 took $5,000 to $9,999, 121,624 took $10,000 to $24,999, 112,609 cleared $100,000 and 41,467 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Every figure above is GROSS RECEIPTS, before expenses — money that arrived before rent, materials, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax. The $24,532 midpoint for Other Specialty Trade Contractors is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $24,532 salary.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Other Specialty Trade Contractors, the hourly figure is $24,532 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · Look up something else