Self-employment method
Transportation Equipment Manufacturing
18,250 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 18,250 people who filed under this code in 2022, 23.85% 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 = 18,250 · 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 | 2,508 | 13.7% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 1,844 | 10.1% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 4,211 | 23.1% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 3,223 | 17.7% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 2,708 | 14.8% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 2,656 | 14.6% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 772 | 4.2% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 308 | 1.7% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 20 | 0.1% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $29,359, or $2,446 a month before expenses. That is an operating business at part-time scale: enough revenue to be worth running properly, not enough to be the only thing in the household.
18,250 people filed under this code — enough that the work exists everywhere and not enough that it supports a visible trade. Most people doing Transportation Equipment Manufacturing are doing it alongside something else.
3,759 filers, 20.6% of the total, took $100,000 or more in receipts. Read the size of that group as evidence about turnover in Transportation Equipment Manufacturing rather than about income: the costs scale with it.
Independent transportation equipment work is specialist subcontracting into long supply chains, so it suits people comfortable with qualification audits and long payment terms.
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 Transportation Equipment Manufacturing earns 7.9x the bottom quarter — under $10,750 against over $85,109, a spread of $74,359. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Transportation Equipment Manufacturing earns under $10,750 — $39,270 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 the cash to survive payment terms set by a customer far larger than you.
4,352 of the 18,250 people filing in 2022 grossed under $10,000 across twelve months — 23.8% of the field. A quarter or more of everyone in Transportation Equipment Manufacturing took in less revenue than a part-time job would have paid in wages.
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
At 7.9x, the gap between $10,750 and $85,109 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $29,359 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 Transportation Equipment Manufacturing runs $10,750 to $85,109 — $74,359 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $29,359.
The 75th percentile is $85,109. Reaching it from the $29,359 midpoint is $55,750 a year; reaching it from the $10,750 that the bottom quarter of Transportation Equipment Manufacturing earn is $74,359.
$18,609 below the midpoint, $55,750 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Transportation Equipment Manufacturing that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $5.16 an hour at the 25th percentile, $14.11 at the midpoint and $40.91 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 2,508 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 1,844. $10,000 to $24,999, 4,211. Over $100,000, 3,756 — and 1,100 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $29,359 is turnover — the money that passed through Transportation Equipment Manufacturing 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 Transportation Equipment Manufacturing, the hourly figure is $29,359 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