Warehousing and Storage

Median gross receipts of $13,640 put the typical filer somewhere between a serious side income and a failing attempt at a full-time one, and the receipts figure alone cannot tell you which.

25,328 filings sit behind this code — a workforce the size of a mid-sized occupation that no payroll survey counts, because none of it runs through a payroll.

2,507 filers cleared $100,000, which is 9.9% of everyone under this code. A share that size means Warehousing and Storage supports a genuine professional tier, and the question becomes what puts someone in it.

Independent warehousing suits people who already control space, since the whole business is renting square footage plus the labour to move what sits on it.

There is no qualification, licence or minimum to appear in this data — you file and you are counted. Read the receipts distribution as the price of that: no barrier at the door means no filter before the numbers.

The top quarter of Warehousing and Storage earns 8.6x the bottom quarter — under $4,472 against over $38,287, a spread of $33,815. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.

The bottom quarter of Warehousing and Storage earns under $4,472 — $45,548 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 leased space you cannot fill; empty square footage is billed at exactly the same rate as full.

Of the 25,328 people who filed as Warehousing and Storage in 2022, 44.4% grossed under $10,000 for the year — 11,240 people who did not clear a part-time wage in revenue, let alone in profit.

Take it as a floor, not an estimate. The $10,000 threshold is measured on money received, before materials, rent, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax, so the true share of filers who ended the year with no income is higher than the figure shown — we simply cannot say how much higher.

From $4,472 to $38,287 is 8.6x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $13,640 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.

The middle half of this field earns between $4,472 and $38,287. That is $33,815 of range, with $13,640 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.

Between $4,472 and $38,287 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $13,640. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $24,647; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $33,815.

$9,168 below the midpoint, $24,647 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Warehousing and Storage that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.

Spread across a 2,080-hour year those receipts come to $6.55 an hour at the midpoint, $2.15 at the 25th percentile and $18.40 at the 75th. That is turnover per hour, not pay per hour, and it is not comparable with the $24.04 an hour a typical American job pays.

Counted straight off the return: 7,079 filers grossed under $5,000, 4,162 took $5,000 to $9,999, 5,864 took $10,000 to $24,999, 2,500 cleared $100,000 and 972 cleared $250,000.