Self-employment method
Scientific Research and Development Services
57,004 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 57,004 people who filed under this code in 2022, 55.48% 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 = 57,004 · 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 | 21,921 | 38.5% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 9,705 | 17.0% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 10,254 | 18.0% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 6,028 | 10.6% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 4,314 | 7.6% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 3,168 | 5.6% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,070 | 1.9% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 412 | 0.7% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 132 | 0.2% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $8,391 put the typical Scientific Research and Development Services filer well below any full-time threshold. Revenue at that level covers a hobby’s costs and rarely much beyond them.
57,004 people filed under this code. That is enough that Scientific Research and Development Services has a going local rate in most places, and enough that you will be quoted against someone else.
8.4% of filers grossed $100,000 or more. That is a substantial upper tier by the standards of this dataset — the difference between a full operation and an occasional one is visible in the distribution rather than only in the anecdotes.
Independent professional work suits people who can carry the whole business — delivery, sales, admin and collections — because with no employees all four are one person’s week.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 57,004 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 Scientific Research and Development Services earns 8.8x the bottom quarter — under $3,251 against over $28,621, a spread of $25,370. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Scientific Research and Development Services earns under $3,251 — $46,769 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 pricing by the hour if you cannot fill the hours; the ceiling is arithmetic and it arrives sooner than you think.
The majority of this field — 55.5%, or 31,625 of 57,004 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 Scientific Research and Development Services, not the failure case.
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
A ratio of 8.8x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $8,391 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Scientific Research and Development Services should plan around it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $3,251 at the 25th percentile, $8,391 at the midpoint, $28,621 at the 75th. $25,370 separates the quarter of Scientific Research and Development Services at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $3,251 and $28,621 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $8,391. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $20,230; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $25,370.
The top quarter of Scientific Research and Development Services begins $20,230 above the $8,391 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $5,140 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.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $1.56 an hour at the 25th percentile, $4.03 at the midpoint and $13.76 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
Straight from the Census bands for Scientific Research and Development Services: 21,921 filers under $5,000, 9,705 between $5,000 and $9,999, 10,254 between $10,000 and $24,999, 4,782 above $100,000 and 1,614 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $8,391 is turnover — the money that passed through Scientific Research and Development Services before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
The hourly number on this page is $8,391 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Scientific Research and Development Services, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else