Self-employment method
Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers
68,451 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 68,451 people who filed under this code in 2022, 34.04% 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 = 68,451 · 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 | 14,264 | 21.0% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 9,040 | 13.3% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 13,387 | 19.7% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 9,111 | 13.4% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 7,825 | 11.5% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 7,589 | 11.2% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 3,353 | 4.9% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 1,969 | 2.9% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 1,344 | 2.0% |
Who this suits
At a $21,919 median in gross receipts, the typical person under this code is running a real but part-time operation. Full-time equivalence would require roughly triple this before costs.
With 68,451 filers, this is a populated field. The market sets the price rather than you, and the useful question is what would let you charge above it.
14,374 filers, 21.0% of the total, took $100,000 or more in receipts. Read the size of that group as evidence about turnover in Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers rather than about income: the costs scale with it.
Working as an agent or broker suits people who would rather earn a margin on someone else’s inventory than finance their own.
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.
Who should not do this
The top quarter of Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers earns 12.7x the bottom quarter — under $6,497 against over $82,649, a spread of $76,152. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers earns under $6,497 — $43,523 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 relationships on both sides already. Brokers with only one side of the trade have no business.
23,300 filers out of 68,451 — 34.0% — reported under $10,000 in gross receipts in 2022. At that share the bottom band is not a warning about beginners; it is a description of a large part of the field.
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.
What the spread tells you
At 12.7x, the gap between $6,497 and $82,649 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $21,919 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
The middle half of this field earns between $6,497 and $82,649. That is $76,152 of range, with $21,919 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $6,497 and $82,649 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $21,919. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $60,730; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $76,152.
The top quarter of Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers begins $60,730 above the $21,919 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $15,422 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.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers takes $10.53 in revenue — $3.12 at the bottom quarter and $39.73 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: 14,264 filers grossed under $5,000, 9,040 took $5,000 to $9,999, 13,387 took $10,000 to $24,999, 14,255 cleared $100,000 and 6,666 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Every figure above is GROSS RECEIPTS, before expenses — money that arrived before rent, materials, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax. The $21,919 midpoint for Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $21,919 salary.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $21,919 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else