Self-employment method
Support Activities for Mining
18,960 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 18,960 people who filed under this code in 2022, 25.39% 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 = 18,960 · 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 | 2,870 | 15.1% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 1,944 | 10.3% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 3,067 | 16.2% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 2,639 | 13.9% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 2,791 | 14.7% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 3,400 | 17.9% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,463 | 7.7% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 504 | 2.7% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 282 | 1.5% |
Who this suits
A median of $40,148 in gross receipts is high for a nonemployer business. Enough revenue passes through the middle of this field that a full-time living is plausible for the people running it well.
At 18,960 filers this is a real but thin national population. There is no established price for Support Activities for Mining at this scale, which cuts both ways: nothing anchors you low and nothing anchors you high.
29.8% 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.
Mining support work suits people who will travel to the site, hold the certifications the operator requires, and price a job that may not repeat.
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 Support Activities for Mining earns 14.3x the bottom quarter — under $9,810 against over $140,103, a spread of $130,293. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Support Activities for Mining earns under $9,810 — $40,210 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 a single operator ending a contract would end your year, because that is the usual shape of it.
25.4% of the 18,960 Support Activities for Mining filings in 2022 reported under $10,000 in gross receipts for the year — 4,813 people who took in less than a part-time wage before costs.
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 $9,810 to $140,103 is 14.3x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $40,148 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
In cash terms the middle half of Support Activities for Mining runs $9,810 to $140,103 — $130,293 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $40,148.
Between $9,810 and $140,103 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $40,148. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $99,955; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $130,293.
$30,338 below the midpoint, $99,955 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Support Activities for Mining 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 Support Activities for Mining takes $19.30 in revenue — $4.71 at the bottom quarter and $67.35 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Counted straight off the return: 2,870 filers grossed under $5,000, 1,944 took $5,000 to $9,999, 3,067 took $10,000 to $24,999, 5,649 cleared $100,000 and 2,249 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $40,148 is turnover — the money that passed through Support Activities for Mining 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 Support Activities for Mining, the hourly figure is $40,148 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