Self-employment method
Waste Management and Remediation Services
23,605 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 23,605 people who filed under this code in 2022, 27.67% 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 = 23,605 · 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 | 3,627 | 15.4% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 2,904 | 12.3% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 4,842 | 20.5% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 3,621 | 15.3% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 3,156 | 13.4% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 3,264 | 13.8% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,245 | 5.3% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 617 | 2.6% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 329 | 1.4% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $27,965, or $2,330 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.
23,605 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.
5,452 filers, 23.1% of the total, took $100,000 or more in receipts. Read the size of that group as evidence about turnover in Waste Management and Remediation Services rather than about income: the costs scale with it.
Independent waste and remediation work suits people who can hold the permits and the disposal relationships, which is the barrier and therefore the margin.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 23,605 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 Waste Management and Remediation Services earns 10.4x the bottom quarter — under $8,916 against over $92,930, a spread of $84,014. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Waste Management and Remediation Services earns under $8,916 — $41,104 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 permits and disposal arrangements; improvising either is a regulatory problem, not a cost problem.
27.7% of the 23,605 Waste Management and Remediation Services filings in 2022 reported under $10,000 in gross receipts for the year — 6,531 people who took in less than a part-time wage before costs.
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 10.4x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $27,965 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Waste Management and Remediation Services should plan around it.
The middle half of this field earns between $8,916 and $92,930. That is $84,014 of range, with $27,965 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Getting to $92,930, the 75th percentile, is worth $64,965 a year more than the $27,965 midpoint and $84,014 more than the $8,916 a quarter of Waste Management and Remediation Services settle for.
$19,049 below the midpoint, $64,965 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Waste Management and Remediation Services 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 $13.44 an hour at the midpoint, $4.28 at the 25th percentile and $44.67 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.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 3,627 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 2,904. $10,000 to $24,999, 4,842. Over $100,000, 5,455 — and 2,191 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
These are GROSS RECEIPTS: everything that came in, before expenses. Rent, stock, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax all come out of the $27,965 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $27,965 wage and should never be read as one.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Waste Management and Remediation Services, the hourly figure is $27,965 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