Since I am using an LTspice simulation, I don't need to worry about burning the transistor out, nor about self-heating affecting the results- the junction will sit magically at 27°C even though it is dissipating an imaginary watt or two.
Using the NXP model, I've plotted Ic/Ib as a function of Ic. You can see that the model's hFE at 150mA agrees well with the datasheet range of 100 to 300- it's 150.
Note that at other currents the hFE maximum is unspecified, only the minimum.
If the Vce is very low, the hFE will be less, as the transistor goes into saturation and additional base current yields no additional collector current. In that regime it does not make sense to call it current gain, sometimes it is called "forced beta".
However in your circuit, the transistor is not saturated, and is far from saturation (Vce ~= 7.5V so the datasheet numbers will apply).
If I simulate it, I get Ic/Ib = 211, which agrees with the datasheet (minimum of 50 to 75 over the range of 1 to 10mA and your circuit is running at about 4mA Ic).
Since transistors can have a wide range of hFE (good ones intended and binned for analog use may have a 2:1 range, ones more intended for digital use can have 3:1 or more. If we assume 600 is the maximum gain (wag - or more scientifically around 3x the typical) then at 0.1mA the 2N2222 could have an hFE from 35 to 600, an almost 20:1 range.
The job of the circuit designer in this scenario is to come up with circuits that are not overly sensitive to hFE, so that even if hFE is the datasheet minimum or if it is way higher than typical, or when it changes due to temperature etc., the circuit will operate within requirements and will not require adjustments or trims. That's not always possible or practical. In this case, the emitter degeneration resistor R22 makes the circuit much less sensitive to hFE variations.
This points out a pitfall, if you tweak your circuit on the bench with a given sample of transistor or if you tweak it in simulation with a given model, you can get results that will not be reproducible once you buy many transistors from many different suppliers if your circuit is too sensitive to the allowable variations in parameters. That's the difference between design and tinkering (no offence to actual skilled utensil repair persons intended).